i 


IRELAND 

PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

Embracing  a  Complete  History  of  the 

LAND  QUESTION 


FROM  THE 


EArXIEST  PERIOD  TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 


By  DAVID  POWER  CONYNGHAM,  LL.  D., 

Author  of  The  Irish  Brigade,  and  its  Campaigns ;  Lives  of  the  IHsh  Saints 

and  Martyrs ;  etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

ALSO,  A  VERY  FULL  AND  COMPLETE  HISTORY  OF 


THE  PENAL  LAWS, 

BY  P  ARNE  LL, 
AND  TALKS  ABOUT  IRELAND,  BY  REDPATH. 


Copyricjht,  1883. 
By  JAMES  SUEEUY. 


% 


CHAlilES  STEWAliT  PAiL\ELL, 

THE  DEFENDER  OF   HIS   COUNTRY,  THE   APOSTLE   OF  LIBERTY, 
THE  GRACCHUS  OF  IRELAND, 

The  Tried  and  Trusted  Advocate  of  the  People's 
Right  to  Live  in  the  Land  of  their  birth 
AND  Enjoy  the  Fruits  of  its  Soil. 

THE  STERN  OPPONENT  OF  ENGLISH  MISRULE, 

He  stands  BEFORE  THE  WORLD  UNASSAILABLE  IN  HIS  PURITY, 


REHLARKABLE  IN  niS  WISDOM, 
AND  UNFLINCHIXG  IN  HIS  ItESOLUTIOX, 

Glorious  in  his  noble  struggle  on  behalf  of  an 


oppressed  people  ; 


TRIUMPHANT  EVEN  IX  A  DUNGEON, 

FOR  BRITISH  TYRANNY  FAILED  TO  STILL  HIS  TONGUE, 
OR     CRUSH      HIS     HEARTFELT     ASPIRATIONS     AND  SCATinXQ 
APPEALS  ON  BEHALF  OF  WHAT  OUGHT  TO  BE  A  FREE  PEOPLE 
ENJOYING  THE  BLESSINGS  OF  THEIR  OWN  LAWS 


ON  THEIR  OWN  LAND,  IN  A 


FREE  AND  INDEPENDENT  COUNTRY. 


DEDICATION. 

TO  THE  PATRIOTIC  PEOPLE  OF  IRELAND. 
WHO     ARE    80     GALLANTLY    WAGING     AGAINST  THE 
DESPOTIC  POWER  OF  ENGLAND  AND  HER  MERCILESS 
ALLIES,  THE  IRISH  LANDLORDS, 
ONE  OF  THE  MOST 
HEROIC  AND  SELF  SACRIFICING  STRUGGLES  ON  RECORD, 

FOR  THE  GOD-GIVEN  RIGHTS  OF 
LIVING  IN    THEIR   NATIVE   LAND  AND  ENJOYING  THE 
FRUITS  OF  THE  SOIL  AS  CREATED  BY 
Til  KIR  OWN  INDUSTRY, 
THIS  WORK  IS  RESPECTFULLY  DEDICATED 

BY 

THE  AUTHOR. 


IIJTRODUCTION. 


We  live  in  a  utilitarian  age,  an  age  of  progress,  rapid 
thought  and  rapid  action.  Few  men  have  the  time  or  leisure 
to  devote  years  or  months  to  abstruse  studies,  so  that  history, 
like  everything  else,  to  be  popular,  must  be  condensed  and  re- 
duced to  the  conception  of  the  times. 

Men  who  cannot,  or  will  not,  wade  through  the  columns  of  a 
voluminous  histo»*y  will  anxiously  devour  a  concise  and  con- 
densed one,  embracing  in  as  few  words  as  possible  all  the 
salient  points  of  a  more  elaborate  work. 

On  this  account  I  have  been  teinpted  to  condense  into  the 
present  volume  all  that  is  necessary  and  valuable  to  know  in 
Irish  history,  at  the  same  time  not  losing  sight  of  the  fact  that 
great  and  exciting  events  demand  a  lucid  and  detailed  state- 
ment. 

Impressed  by  the  progressive  idea  of  the  times  and  the 
tendency  to  condense  and  concentrate,  I  have  tried  to  condense 
the  salient  points  in  the  history  of  Ireland  into  as  brief  a  space 
I  as  possible. 

'  We  have  given  the  reader  a  brief  sketch  of  Ireland's  earliest 
settlers  aiid  history;  of  her  growth  as  a  nation,  of  her  increas- 
ing wealth  and  power,  of  her  military  greatness,  her  religious 
sanctity,  and  also  of  her  subjection  to  English  rule  and  dorain- 


6 


INTRODUCnOX. 


iMii.  With,  as  it  were,  a  crlimpse  at  the  past,  we  have  place*! 
before  our  readers  an  elaborate  statement  of  recent  and  excit- 
ing events.  We  give  an  elaborate  account  of  the  Rebellion  of 
*98,  the  Repeal  agitation,  the  events  of  '48,  the  Fenian  rising, 
and  last  but  not  least,  a  full  history  of  that  wonderful  social 
reformation,  the  Land  League  movement.  The  work,  is  in  fact, 
a  lucid  condensation  of  L  ish  history  from  the  earliest  settle- 
ment of  the  country  down  to  the  present  day. 

In  addition,  we  have  collected  the  views  and  opinions  of 
Bome  of  the  foremost  thinkers  and  ablest  political  writers  of 
the  day,  on  the  causes  that  have  produced  such  wretchedness, 
want,  and  misery  in  Ireland,  The  opinions  sot  forth  by  these 
writers  and  speakers  cannot  be  deemed  in  any  sense  partial 
or  prejudiced,  yet  they  all  concur  in  laying  at  England's  door 
the  sin  and  shame  of  Ireland's  deplorable  condition. 

A  nation  that  cannot  or  will  not  rule  a  people  subject  to  i:s 
authority  but  by  coercion  and  military  despotism,  is  unfit  to 
poveni,  and  the  governed  owes  no  allegiance  to  such  a  power. 
A*^  well  might  a  member  of  a  firm  who  was  systematical! v 
robbing  his  partner  insist  upon  the  latter  continuing  the  part- 
nership, as  that  England  should  insist  iipon  the  alliance  be- 
tween herself  and  Ireland.  With  the  latter  it  is  a  matter  of 
necessity,  not  choice,  and  as  soon  as  a  favorable  opporturitv 
offers  to  dissolve  the  hated  partnership  she  will  not  fail  to  eni- 
b'-ace  it. 

There  never  was,  nor  never  shall  be,  any  bonds  of  affection 
between  the  two  countries,  for  wrong,  oi)pression,  and  coercion 
on  the  part  of  England  have  driven  the  iron  so  deeply  into  the 
lieart  of  Ireland,  that  the  sore  will  continue  to  fester  and 
rankle  even  if  the  barb  were  removed. 

It  is  a  sad  commentary  upon  England's  rule  in  Ireland  to- 


INTKODUCTIOI?'.  7 

day,  that,  since  the  Union,  famines  have  been  periodicaf, 
deaths  from  starvation  can  be  counted  by  the  million,  while 
the  decimation  of  the  peasantry  by  artificial  famines,  evictions, 
starvation,  and  forced  emigration,  is  something  fearful  to 
contemplate. 

The  population  of  Ireland  in  1846  was  over  nine  millions; 
then  came  the  terrible  famine  years,  which  swept  the  Irish, 
like,  a  plague,  off  the  face  of  the  earth.  While  the  world 
stood  aghast  at  the  terrible  picture  of  poverty,  wretchedness, 
and  ruin  Ireland  presented,  and  witli  unbounded  charity 
poured  money  and  bread-stuff  to  the  aid  of  the  famishing 
people,  England  closed  her  ports  against  their  charity,  al- 
lowed millions  of  bushels  of  corn  to  rot  in  her  granaries,  and 
her  leading  organ,  The  London  Times,  savagely  cried  out: 
"  The  Irish  are  gone  with  a  vengeance,  the  Lord  be  praised!" 

The  terrible  famine  had  desolated  the  land,  decades  of  ye^irs 
have  passed  over,  anothsr  famine  has  since  done  its  work, 
and  to-day  Ireland's  population  is  only  a  little  over  half  what 
it  was  some  thirty-five  years  ago. 

It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  Ireland  hates  England  pro- 
foundly and  deeply,  and  with  an  undying  hatred  which  even 
time  can  scarcely  eradicate. 

In  this  work  we  have  tried  to  delineate  Ireland's  torture 
and  England's  bloody  reign  in  a  truthful  and  impartial 
spirit,  though  we  must  confess  that  it  requires  more  than 
angelic  patience  on  the  part  of  an  author  with  hot  Irish 
blood  in  his  veins,  and  Irish  sympathies  in  his  heart,  to  write 
on  such  a  subject  with  patience  and  equanimity  of  temper. 

We  have  added  to  the  work  an  excellent  chronological  in- 
dex of  dates  and  remarkable  events,  which  will  be  found  of 
great  interest,  and  al«^o  the  muster-roll  of  the  officers  of  the 
Volunteers  of  1782.,  etc.,  etc. 


8  INTKODUOTION. 

<  In  conclusion,  let  us  hope  that  Ireland  has  passed  through 
her  darkest  hour — her  bitterest  sorrow, — and  that  kind  Provi- 
dence will  soon  remove  the  poisoned  cup  from  her  lips,  and 
that  she  will  ere  long  stand  before  the  world  glorious  in  her 
disenthralled  beauty,  a  star  in  the  firmament  of  Nations,  and 
a  gem  among  the  Republics  of  Europe. 

THE  AUTHOR. 

New  Youk,  March  17th,  1883. 


D.  P.  CONYNGHAM.  LL.  D. 


MA  JOE  DAVID  POWER  CONYNGHAM,  LL.D 


D.  P.  Conyngliam,  editor  of  the  New  York  Tablet^ 
died  on  Sunday  evening,  April  1st,  1883,  at  liis  residence 
in  New  York,  of  pneumonia.  So  sudden  and  unlooked 
for  was  his  death,  that  the  first  most  of  his  friends 
learned  of  it  was  from  tlie  obituary  in  the  daily  papers. 

Major  Conyngham  was  born  near  Killenaule,  County 
Tipperary,  Ireland,  about  fifty  years  ago,  and 
inherited  a  comfortable  patrimony  in  the  district. 

He  came  of  that  class  known  in  Ireland  as  gentlemen 
farmers,  and  was  closely  allied  to  some  who  have  left 
their  mark  in  the  record  of  patriotism  and  literature. 
He  was  a  cousin  of  the  late  Charles  Kickham.  He  was 
educated  at  the  Queen's  University,  Cork,  where  he 
gave  evidence  of  literary  inclinations  at  an  early  age. 
While  still  very  young,  James  Dnffy,  of  Dublin,  pub- 
lished two  works  of  fiction  from  his  pen,  which  gave 
promise  of  future  success.  Intended  by  his  parents 
for  the  priesthood,  he  felt  the  want  of  avocation,  aban- 
doned the  idea,  and  left  to  his  brother,  the  late  Rev. 
Maurice  Conyngham,  of  this  city,  that  distinction  so 
much  coveted  in  Irish  families. 

Having  become  mixed  up  with  national  affairs,  in  the 
rising  of  '48,  young  Conyngham  found  it  advisable  to 
leave  home. 

He  came  to  America  in  1863  as  war  correspondent  of 
a  prominent  Dublin  journal,  and  with  letters  of  com- 


10 


OBITUARY. 


Ttiendation  from  Smith  O'Brien  and  P.  J.  Sm^ytli  to 
General  Thomas  Francis  Meagher. 

He  was  engaged  as  war  correspondent  by  the  New 
York  Herald,  and  served  as  volunteer  aid-de-camp  on  . 
General  Meagher's  staff.-  He  accomjianied.  Sherman  in 
his  ''March  to  the  Sea,"  and  earned  fresh  laurels  as  a 
soldier  and  writer.  He  participated  in  most  of  the  en- 
£^a5jements;  was  wounded  at  the  battle  of  Resaca,  and 
was  personally  congratulated  on  the  battle-field  for  his 
gaUaiitry  by  General  Schofield.  After  the  war  he  re- 
reived  from  the  De])ariment  at  Washington  the  com- 
])limentary  commission  of  Major. 

In  1860  Major  Conyngham  became  proprietor  of  the 
IrlsJi  People,  the  organ  of  tlie  Fenian  Brotheihood  in 
those  days,  and  in  1868  founded  the  Staten  Island 
Leader,  in  conjunction  with  the  late  P.  H.  Gill.  Dis- 
posing of  his  interest,  he  became  part  proprietor  of  the 
Sumlai/  Democrat. 

Ceasing  connection  with  the  Democrat,  Major 
Convngliam  became  an  attache  of  the  Post-Ofiice  De- 
jjartnient,  uiuler  Postmaster  James,  which  position  he 
resigned  to  take  editorial  management  of  the  Kew  York 
Tablet,  with  the  Messrs.  Sadlier,  a  few  years  ago.  He 
gave  that  paper  a  strong  national  as  well  as  Catholic 
tone,  which  added  greatly  to  its  jiopularity.  A  short 
time  ago,  he,  in  partnership  with  General  M.  Kerwin, 
became  proprietor  of  the  Tablet. 

He  was  a  staunch  Irish  Nationalist,  and  an  advocate 
of  the  absolute  independence  of  Ireland  from  British 
rul^. 

Major  Conyngham  was  the  author  of  many  works,  the 
best  known  of  wliich  are  ''The  History  of  the  Irish  Brig- 
ade," '' Sherman's  March  Through  the  South,"  ''Sars- 
field,  or,  T])e  Last  Great  Strngglle  for  Ireland,"  ''The 
O'Donnells  of  Glen  Cottage."  the  "O'Mahoneys.  aTale 
of  the  liebellion  of  "98."  ^The  Sisters  of  Charity  on  the 


OBITUARY.  '  11 

Southern  Battlefields,"  ''Kose  Parnel],  the  Flower  of 
Avondale,"  Lives  of  the  Irish  Saints  and  Martyrs," 
etc.,  etc.  After  the  publication  of  the  last-named  work, 
Major  Conyngham  received  a  rescript  letter  from  Pius 
IX.  thanking  liim  for  it,  while  the  University  of  K'otre 
Dame  conferred  on  him  the  degree  of  LL.D. 

"Ireland,  Past  and  Present,"  was  the  last  production 
of  Dr.  Conyngham' s  prolific  pen,  and  was  finished  only 
a  few  days  previous  to  the  lamented  author's  death. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  Irish  Brigade  Association,  held 
at  the  armory  of  the  Sixtv-ninth  Reo-iment  on  the  10th 
inst.,  the  following  resolutions  were  adopted  : 

Whereas,  It  has  pleased  Almighty  God  to  remove 
from  this  earth  1}^  sphere  our  beloved  friend,  comrade, 
and  historian,  Major  David  P.  Conyngham,  at  a  time 
when  a  career  of  great  usefulness  and  brilliant  pros- 
pects had  opened  before  liim  ;  therefore 

Resolmd,  That,  while  bowing  before  the  awful  fiat 
of  an  all-wise  Providence,  and  consoling  ours^^lves  by 
the  recollections  of  his  many  virtues  and  noble  quali- 
ties, we  beg  to  tender  to  his  brother  and  sisters  the  ex- 
pression of  our  profoundest  sorrow  for  their  and  our 
loss  ;  also 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  this  resolution  be  spread 
on  the  minutes  of  the  Association,  and  a  copy  of  tlie 
same  forwarded  to  his  relatives,  and  also  published  in 
The  New  YorJc  Tablet. 

(Signed),  D.  F.  Burke,  Pres. 

Wm.  O' Meagher,  Sec. 

Iew  York,  April  10th,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 

Eulogy   3 

Dedication   4 

Introduction   5 

Obituary  of  the  author   9 

CHAPTER  I. 

PAGAN  IRELAND. 

How  Ireland  was  Colonized — Its  Earliest  Inhabitants  from  Partliolan 
down  to  the  Milesians — Its  Settlement  in  Albania — Its  wars  and 
Conquests  in  Britain  and  against  the  Romans  '  17 

CHAPTER  II. 

CHRISTIAN  IRELAND, 

The  Light  of  the  Gospel— St.  Patrick's  Mission— The  Greatness  and 
GJory  of  Christian  Ireland   31 

CHAPTER  III. 

IRELAND  THE  ISLAND  OF  SAINTS. 

The  Danish  Invasion — From  the  arrival  of  the  Danes  to  that  of  the 
Anglo-Normans— The  Battle  of  Clontarf   45 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  ANGLO  NORMAN  INVASION. 

From  the  Landing  of  the  Saxon  Invaders  down  to  the  Protestant 
Reformation — Art  MacMurrough — How  Ireland  was  Betrayed — 
Disunion  and  Jealousy  the  Ruin  of  Ireland   03 

CHAPTER  V. 

THE  REFORMATION. 

Ireland  and  her  English  Protestant  Rulers— Persecution  of  the 
Catholics— the  Price  Set  on  a  Priest's  Head— Confiscation,  Spolia- 
tion, and  Murder   I'S 


1 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  yi. 

THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82. 

The  Declaration  of  Indcpendeuce— The  Rebellion  of  '98— The 
Union — The  Repeal  Movement — The  Famine  in  Ireland — The  3Ien 
of  '48     94 

CHAPTER  yiL 

THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 

Organization  in  Ireland— The  Irish  Republic  in  America — The 
Arrests  in  1865 — Escape  of  James  Stephens — The  Fiasco  of  1807 — 
The  Manchester  Martyrs   109 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  'WRETCHED  CONDITION  OP  IRELAND, 

Views  and  Opinions  of  Foreign  "Writers — What  Eminent  German 
Professors  Say — The  Bishop  of  Autun— "What  American  Writers 
and  Speakers  Think  of  England's  Treatment  of  Ireland — Ireland's 
Claims  on  America   139 

CHAPTER  IX. 

COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION. 

Persecutions  and  Confiscations — Coercion  since  the  Union — The 
Wretched  Condition  of  the  Country — How  Ireland  is  Governed — 
Evictions  in  Ireland — The  Right  of  Self-government  167 

CHAPTER  X. 

THE  LAND  "WAR  IN  IRELAND. 

The  Famine  Scourge — Heartless  Conduct  of  the  Landlords — The 
Relief  Committees — America's  Generous  Aid  and  Sympathy — 
Terrible  Suffering — Statements  of  Priests  and  Other  Persons   20!S> 

CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE. 

Its  Inception  ftnd  "Workings— Coercion  by  the  Government — Boy- 
cotting—Arrests of  Parnell,  Dillon,  and  Other  Suspects— The 
Ladies'  Land  League— Combination  and  Organization — The  Pros- 
pect in  Ireland  223 

CHAPTER  XII. 

MICHAEL  DAVITT'S  VIEWS. 

Progress  of  the  Land  League  3Iovcmcnt  in  America — The  Buffalo 


CONTEiS'TS.  15 

and  Washington  Conventions— The  Plcd.ires  Made  to  ouf  Brothers 
at  Home — The  Phoenix  Park  Assassinations— Davilt  in  America — 
Death  of  Miss  Fanny  Parnell   ^   248 

CHAPTER  Xni. 
1782  AND  1882. 

The  Dublin  Exhibition — The  O'Connell  Monument — Sketch  of^ 
Dublin  and  Vicinity — 1882  and  its  Memories — Dublin  and  its 
Public  Buildings  267 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  IRISH  HIERARCHY. 

Their  Views  on  the  Land  League — Extracts  from  their  Pastorals 
and  Addresses — Their  Address  to  the  People  of  Ireland   328 

CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  UNION. 

Articles  of  Union  between  Great  Britain  and  Ireland — An  Act  for 
the  Union  of  Great  Britam  and  Ireland  344 

CHAPTER  XVI. 

ORIGINAL  LISTS. 

Original  Red  List — Original  Black  List  370 

CHAPTER  XVII. 

ABSTRACT  AND  LISTS. 

Abstract  of  Volunteers — List  and  Names  of  the  Volunteers — List  of 
the  Original  Planters — List  of  Peerages — List  of  Governors  383 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 

CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OP  IRELAND. 

Embracing  the  Leading  Events  in  the  History  of  Ireland,  from  the 

I  irst  Settlement  of  the  Country  down  to  1883   415 

Pedigrees. . .   501 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


CHAPTEH  L 

PAGA^f  IPwELAT^D. 

How  Ireland  was  Colonized — Us  Earliest  InJiahitants^ 
from  Partliolan  doicn  to  the  2Iilesians — Its  Settle- 
ment in  Albania  —  Its   Wars  and  Conquests  in 
Britain  and  against  the  Romans. 

The  history  of  Ireland  is  a  proud  and  startling  one, 
that  should  awaken  a  sympathetic  chord  in  the  heart 
of  every  patriot  and  Christian.  Once  the  imtron  of 
learning  and  literature,  the  home  of  art  and  science, 
the  star  that  illumined  the  darkness  of  the  Western 
world,  she  has  been  bowed  down  and  dishonored  by 
centuries  of  persecution  and  oppression.  A  nation  that 
once  defied  the  armed  legions  of  Rome,  and  hurled 
back  the  Vikings  and  their  fierce  followers  from  her 
shores,  has  been  subjugated,  not  so  much  by  the  arms' 
.  of  England,  as  by  the  intrigue,  treachery,  and  deceit  of 
her  ruthless  enemv. 

Despite  the  fact  that  for  seven  centuries  she  has  been 
overrun  by  the  armies  of  England,  plundered  by  her 
soldiers  and  statesmen,  and  strangled  by  her  cruel  and 
despotic  laws,  still  she  stands  before  the  world  to-day, 
untamed  and  unconquerecl,  struggling  manfully  with 
her  destiny,  meeting  the  galling  taunts  and  bloody 


18 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


coercion  of  the  enemy  with  a  defiant  spirit  of  indepen- 
dence in  her  tone  and  hope  in  her  future  destiny.  There 
is  an  air  of  romance  and  chivah*y  in  her  history  that  in- 
vests her  with  a  heroic  beauty,  and  tiiat  inspires  her 
people  with  an  unconquerable  resolve  never  to  give  up 
the  struggle  until  they  place  the  diadem  of  liberty  upon 
her  brow,  and  make  her  in  wealth  and  power  what 
she  is  in  beauty,  namely,  the  "Emerald  Isle  of  the 
Ocean.'' 

The  Pagan  history  of  Ireland  has  been  scarcely  less 
glorious  in  military  achievements,  and  in  the  arts  which 
constitute  civilization  and  refinement,  than  her  Chris- 
tian one.  Her  princes  and  chieftains  carried  their 
triumphant  banners  through  England  and  Scotland, 
and  often  the  Roman  Eagle  drooped  her  pinions  in 
shame  before  the  Sunburst  of  Erin,  while  the  last  of 
Ireland's  Pagan  kings  fell  at  the  very  foot  of  the  Alps, 
while  pursuing  her  routed  legions. 

The  arms  of  imperial  Rome,  which  laid  the  world 
prostrate  at  the  feet  of  the  C?esars,  were  never  able  to 
subjugate  Ireland.  Her  warlike  sons  were  never 
dragged  after  the  chariot-wheels  of  her  victorious 
generals,  or  sold  as  slaves  in  her  markets.  Their  blood  ' 
was  never  shed  in  the  gladiatorial  arena  to  grace  a 
Roman  holiday^  nor  upon  her  altars  to  consecrate 
Pagan  rites  and  sacrifices. 

•  Yet  this  proud,  this  martial  people,  whose  arms  had 
defied  the  Roman  power,  when  the  light  of  faith  was 
spread  among  them,  bowed  their  heads  in  humble  sub. 
mission  before  the  standard  of  the  Cross,  and  meekly 
embraced  the  strange  doctrines  of  its  followers,  abandon- 
ing a  religion  that  flattered  their  passions  and  fasci- 
nated their  senses,  lor  one  of  penance,  mortification,  and 
self-denial.  It  is  a  proud  boast  that  Ireland  is  the  only 
country  in  Europe  where  Christianity  was  not  sown  in 


PAGAN  IRELAND.  19 

blood,  and  where  it  lias  survived  unheard-of  persecu- 
tions— the  rack,  the  gibbet,  spoliation,  and  all  but  ex- 
termination. 

Before  treating  of  the  land  agitation  and  the  present 
condition  of  Ireland,  we  mean  to  give  a  synopsis  of  her 
past  history  from  her  earliest  settlement,  so  that  our 
readers  may  form  some  idea  of  her  greatness  when 
governed  by  her  own  princes  and  rulers,  as  well  as  the 
causes  which  have  contributed  to  her  subjugation  and 
decline.  Weakened  by  her  continued  w^arfare  with  the 
Danes,  and  by  internecine  quarrels,  she  became  a  prey 
to  English  invaders,  and  has  ever  since  vainly  struggled 
to  regain  her  liberty,  though  each  successive  effort  re. 
suited  in  her  being  more  mercilessly  despoiled  and 
robbed  by  her  brutal  invaders. 

The  early  history  of  Ireland,  like  that  of  most 
countries,  has  been  considerably  obscured  by  tradition 
and  fable.  It  has  become  the  custom  of  every  people 
to  endeavor  to  ennoble  their  origin,  and  establish  for  it 
an  ancient  and  illustrious  foundation.  On  this  account, 
the  fabulous  has  become  so  blended  with  the  real  that 
the  early  histories  of  ancient  countries' have  been  in- 
volved in  much  obscurity.  The  Egyptians  date  back 
their  history  fifty  thousand  years,  the  Chaldeans 
much  longer,  for  they  claim  to  have  made  astronomical 
calculations  four  hundred  thousand  years  before  the 
birth  of  Christ.  The  Chinese  claim  a  civilization  long 
anterior  to  the  creation.  Even  the  early  histories  of 
Rome  and  Greece  are  obscured  by  similar  fabulous 
claims  to  an  origin  which  facts  do  not  warrant  nor 
history  allow.  It  is  probable  that,  in  tracing  their 
history,  the  ancient  Milesians  may  have  been  addicted 
to  the  marvelous,  like  other  people,  but  it  must  be  re- 
collected that  in  Ireland  the  history  and  traditions  of 
its  early  inhabitants  were  carefully  preserved  both  by 


20 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


tlie  bards  and  ollamlis,  and  that  ancient  historians  con- 
firm their  claim  to  a  very  remote  antiquity  and  a  high 
state  of  civilization.  In  the  "  Argonautica"  of  Or- 
pheus of  Crotona  (500  B.  C.)  Ireland  is  called  lernis. 
In  the  "  De  Miindo,  "  attributed  to  Aristotle,  it  is  called 
lerne.  Diodorus  Siculus  alludes  to  it  as  Iris  or  Irisi, 
and  Strabo  names  it  lerne.  Caesar,  Tacitus,* and  Pliny 
call  it  Hibernia;  Mela  and  others,  Juverna.  The  name 
of  Ogygla,  most  ancient  land,''  was  applied  to  it  by 
Plutarch.  In  the  third  century  the  whole  island  took 
the  name  of  Scotia,  a  term  not  then  apjilied  to  the 
country  now  called  Scotland,  and  which  w^as  then 
called  Scotia  Minor,  or  the  lesser  Scotia. 

Plistorians  generally  admit  that  Ireland  was  settled 
about  two  thousand  years  before  Christ.  0'Flaherr3"'s 
"Oi^rvgia"  fixes  the  arrival  of  the  first  colonies  in 
Ireland,  under  Partliolan,  in  the  year  of  the  world  1969, 
or  three  hundred  and  twelve  vears  after  the  Delu^^e. 
They  are  supposed  to  have  come  originally  from 
Scythia.  After  a  settlement  of  about  three  hundred 
years  in  the  country,  the  colony  perished  by  a  plague. 

The  island  Avas  next  settled  l)v  a  colony  under 
Nemedius,  a  great-grand-nephew  of  Partholan,  about 
the  year  1727  He  came  from  the  shores  of  the 
Euxine  Sea,  with  about  a  thousand  followers,  and  his 
wife  Macha,  who  died  after  a  short  residence  in  the 
island,  and  \vas  buried  at  Admach,  since  called 
Armagh.  Nemedius  and  his  descendants  held  peaceful 
sway  of  the  country  for  some  time,  until  they  were  in- 
vaded by  the  Fomorians,  who  are  supposed  to  have 
been  Carthaginian  pirates  and  adventurers,  and  defeated 
after  several  battles.  Nemedius  himself  is  said  to  have 
died  of  grief  at  Oilean  Arda-Neivy,  now  Barry  more, 
County  Cork.  The  remnant  of  the  Nemedian  colony 
that  had  escaped  the  slaughter,  left  the  country.  A 


PAGAiN  IRELAND. 


21 


colony  of  tlietn  settled  in  tlie  north  of  Germany,  from 
whom  the  Tiiathade  Danaanswere  descended.  Another 
colony,  under  Briotan  Maol,  grandson  of  Nemedius, 
settled  Iq  Britain,  the  country  being  so  called  after 
their  chief. 

The  next  settlers  were  a  tribe  of  Firbolgs,  or  Belgians, 
of  the  race*  of  Niimidius.  The  expedition  was  under 
command  of  five  brothers,  who  soon  took  possession  of 
the  country  and  divided  it  into  five  provinces,  which 
gave  birth,  to  the  pentarchy  which  lasted  until  the 
twelfth  centur}^  Slaingey,  chief  of  Leinster,  was 
•  monarch,  or  Ardrigh,  oC  the  whole  island,  and  estab- 
lished liis  residence  at  Tara. 

The  Firbolgs  did  not  remain  long  in  peaceful  posses- 
sion of  the  countr}^  for  in  the  reign  of  Eoglia,  about 
eighty  years  after  their  settlement,  a  colony  of  Tuatha  de 
Danains,  whose  ancestors  had  settled  in  Germany  after 
being  driven  out  of  Ireland,  made  a  descent  upon  the 
country  under  their  chief  IS'uagha,  and  gave  battle  to 
the  Firbolgs,  commanded  by  their  king,  Eogha,  at  a 
place  now  called  Partry,  County  Mayo.  The  Firbolgs 
were  so  badlv  beaten  that  the  remnant  of  them  had  to 
seek  an  asylum  in  the  wilds  of  Connaught.  In  the 
battle  at  Partry  ]N"uagha  lost  his  hand  in  the  engage- 
ment, and  had  its  place  supplied  by  a  silver  one;  lience 
his  sobriquet  of  Airgiodlamli,  or  '*  The  Silver-handed." 

It  is  said  that  these  Tuatha  de  Danaanswere  skilled 
in  magic  and  all  the  superstitions  of  the  Eastern 
nations.  In  their  journey  to  Ireland  they  visited 
Norway  and  Denmark,  and  impressed  the  inhabitaiits 
with  their  diabolical  incantations.  They  brought  with 
tliem  to  Ireland  the  stone  called  the  '^Lea-Fail,"  or 
stone  of  Destiny.  This  stone,  which  gave  to  Ireland  the 
name  of  ^'Innisfail,"  that  is  to  say,  the  Island  of  Fail, 
was  used  at  the  coronation  of  their  kings.    It  was  said 


22  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

to  possess  peculiar  virtues,  such  as  issuing  a  great  noise 
during  the  coronation  ceremonies,  all  of  which  power 
ifc  lost  at  the  coming  of  the  Messiah.  There  is  a  prophecy 
also  which  says  that  wherever  the  stone  should  be 
preserved  one  of  the  race  of  Scotia  should  reign.  Early 
in  th<^  hii-teenth  centurv,  Fergus  tlie  Great  hnving  been 
elected  by  the  Scotch  Balriads  as  their  king,  Murtough, 
Monarch  of  Ireland,  sent  him  the  coronation  stone  to 
be  inaugurated  upon,  in  order  to  perpetuate  the  diadem 
in  the  family.  The  stone  was  preserved  in  the  abbey 
at  Scone,  until  it  was  forcibly  carried  off  by  Edward  I., 
King  of  England,  and  is  said  to  be  still  preserved  under 
the  coronation  chair  in  Westminster  xVbbey. 

The  Tuatha  de  Dannans  held  possession  of  Ireland, 
which  thev  called  Innisfail.  for  about  two  hundred 
years  Towards  the  end  of  their  occupation,  the  three 
sons  of  Kearmada,  the  seventh  king  of  their  dynasty, 
reigned  alternately  for  thirty  years.  They  were  mar- 
ried to  three  sisters,  Bamba,  Fodla,  and  Eire,  after  each 
of  whom  the  country  was  called  in  turn.  As  the  Mile- 
siau  invasion  took  place  during  the  reign  of  Keahur, 
the  husband  of  Eire,  the  invaders  retained  the  name  of 
the  countr}'  by  Avhich  it  was  called  on  their  arrival; 
hence  the  name  of  Eire  has  been  preserved  more  gen- 
erally and  lousier  than  the  others. 

The  next  conquerors  of  Ireland  were  the  Milesians, 
who  subdued  the  Tuatha  de  Danaans  in  the  vear 
1234  B.  C.  The  Milesians  were  a  noniadic  race,  and 
traced  their  descent  from  Fenius  Farsa,  King  of  the 
Scythians,  who  invented  the  first  alphabet,  and  was 
fourth  in  descent  from  Japheth,  one  of  the  three  sons 
of  Noah.  One  of  the  sons  of  Fenius  Farsa,  named  Niul, 
made  a  voyage  into  Egypt  and  married  Scota,  daughter 
of  Pharaoh  Ciniris,  by  whom  he  had  a  son  named 
Gaodhal,  who  was  bitten  by  a  serpent.    Moses  cured 


PAGAN  IRELAND. 


23 


him  by  a  touch  of  his  wand,  and  foretold  that  the  land 
which  would  be  inhabited  by  his  posterity  would  be 
free  from  serpents  and  venomous  reptiles,  which  has 
been  verified  in  regard  to  the  islands  of  Crete  and 
Ireland. 

The  posterity  of  Niul  became  so  numerous  that  the 
Egyptians  began  to  fear  them,  and  compelled  them  to 
leave  the.  country.  After  leaving  Egypt,  under  the 
name  of  Gradalians  they  wandered  for  many  years 
among  the  coasts  of  the  Mediterranean,  and  finally 
settled  in  Spain,  where  they  took  the  name  of  Mile- 
sians, and  established  themselves  at  Braganza,  so  called 
after  their  chief,  Breogan. 

The  invasion  of  Ireland  was  led  by  Scota,  the  wife  of 
Milesius,  who  had  died  in  Spain,  accompanied  by  her 
sons.  Queen  Scota  was  killed  in  the  first  battle,  and 
was  succeeded  by  her  two  sons,  Heremon  and  Heber, 
who  reigned  conjointly.  Ir,  another  son  of  Milesius, 
perished  in  a  storm  on  the  coast,  with  four  of  his 
brothers.  He  left  children,  who  also  obtained  the 
sovereignty.  As  he  was  the  first  Milesian  buried  in 
the  country,  his  followers  called  ihe  country,  in  honor 
of  him,  Ireland. 

The  reign  of  Heber  and  Heremon  was  not  a  happy 
one,  for  dissensions  having  broken"  out  between  them, 
instigated  by  the  wife  of  Heber,  a  battle  ensued,  in 
which  Heber  was  killed. 

D  uring  the  reign  of  Heremon  a  colony  from  Gaul, 
called  Picts,  who  had  originally  come  from  Thrace, 
arrived  in  Ireland,  They  were  not  allowed  to  settle  in 
the  country,  buc  left  for  Albania,  as  Scotland  was  then 
called.  They  had  no  w^omen  among  them,  and  the  Irish 
Milesians  supplied  them  with  wives,  on  condition  of 
their  paying  to  them  annual  tribute,  and  vesting  the 
sovereignty  in  the  female  line  forever,  v 


24  IRELAND^  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

It  is  not  easy  to  define  the  religion  and  customs  of 
the  Milesians.     Some  think  that  they  had  a  knowl- 
edge of  the  true  God,  which  they  received  from  Moses 
and  the  Israelites,  with  whom  they  had  connection  be- 
fore the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea.    However  this  may  be, 
they  became  a  most  superstitious  people,  worshiping 
various  kinds  of  idols.    They  paid  great  honor  to 
their  Druids,  who  were  to  them  priests,  philosophers, 
legislators,  and  judges,  as  well  as  to  their  bards  and 
military  heroes.    Their  divinities  were  common  to  them 
and  to  other  nations  of  the  world.    As  legislators  and 
judges  the  Druids  were  arbiters  in  all  public  affairs, 
and  were  invested  with  power  to  reward  or  punish, 
Tiie  word  '/ druid"  was  derived  from     dair,'''  which 
means  oak,  with  which  the  island  was  covered,  and  under 
which  the  Druids  worshiped.    They  had  several  idols, 
the  chief  being  named  Kean  Caoithi,  or  "  Head  of  the 
Gods."    Clogher  was  called  after  a  stone  or  idol  covered 
with  gold,  which  gave  forth  oracles.    Next  to  the 
Druids  iu  iuiportauce  ranked  the  Filea,  or  bards,  they 
enjoyed  higli  privileges,  and  sat  with  a  right  of  suf- 
frage in  the  assemblies  of  state.    They  were  employed 
in  singing  the  praise  of  distinguished  men,  and  in  unde- 
serving the  genealogies  of  great  families  and  the  records 
of  the  country. 

The  Milesians  had  a  number  of  idolatrous  observances 
which  Christianity  has  utilized.  The  May-day  observ 
ances,  still  practiced  in  Ireland,  originated  in  the  offer 
ing  of  sacrifice  to  the  great  idol  Bael  on  that  day,  and 
tlie  custom  of  driving  cattle  through  fire  on  St.  John's 
Eve  lias  been  handed  down  to  us  from  Pagan  times. 

The  Milesians  had  their  origin  from  the  Scythians, 
and  their  customs  and  literature  from  the  Egy  ptians. 
As  these  were  the  most  polished  of  ancient  nations,  the 
Milesians  brought  with  them  to  Ireland  their  laws, 


PAGAN  IKELA]S^D. 


their  religion,  and  their  literature.  They  were  also  a 
martial  j^eople — brave,  religious,  and  impulsive.  They 
were  well  versed  in  science,  the  arts  and  manufactures, 
for  we  find  that  as  early  as  the  reign  of  Figernmas 
the  gold  mines  of  Ireland  were  worked  and  shields 
were  embossed  with  silver  and  gold,  while  the  Ollamhs, 
or  learned  men  of  the  country,  wore  finger-rings  and 
chains  of  gold. 

In  the  tribal  divisions  of  Ireland  the  Heberians,  or 
the  descendants  of  Heber,  and  the  descendents  of  Ith 
possessed  Manster,  the  Irians,  or  descendants  of  Ir, 
atter  whom  the  country  was  called,  possessed  Ulster; 
Leinster  was  under  the  dominion  of  the  Hereinonians, 
and  Connauglifc  was  held  by  Firdomnians,  of  the  race 
of  the  Firbolgs.  Their  chiefs  or  petty  princes  were 
subject  to  the  Ardrigh,  or  supreme  monarch,  and  as 
the  Milesians  were  a  martial  people,  it  is  not  surprising 
that  numerous  wars  kept  the  country  embroiled  in 
bloody  strife. 

Yery  little  definite  is  known  of  the  histories  of  the 
different  princes  who  ruled  Ireland  to  the  time  of 
Ollave  Fola.  This  great  and  wise  monarch  reigned 
about  the  close  of  the  seventh  century  before  Christ. 
He  mnv  be  iustlv  called  the  father  of  letters.  He 
convoked  a  triennial  assembly  of  the  states  at  Tara,  in 
Meath,  where  Avise  and  stable  laws  were  enacted  for  the 
administration  of  justice  and  the  general  government 
of  the  country  He  also  founded  a  college  at  Tara 
for  the  education  of  youth.  He  liad  assigned  lands  for 
the  support  of  the  various  professors  and  judges.  He 
had  also  ap]3ointed  a  Chief  Druid  to  offer  sacrifice,  a 
doctor  to  attend  to  his  health,  a  bard  to  sing  his  praise, 
an  Ollamh  to  preserve  genealogies,  and  a  Brelion  to  ad- 
minister justice. 

The  Brehon  laws  have  been  so  called  after  the  judges 


26 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


who  administered  them,  and  they  chiefly  referred  to 
tlie  conditions  on  whicli  the  clans  lield  land  under  their 
chiefs.  They  held  that  the  land  was  for  the  benefit  of 
the  people,  and  belonged  by  i-ight  to  the  people,  who 
merely  paid  tribute  to  the  chief  or  prince  who  ruled 
over  them,  in  the  shape  of  kind  or  military  services. 
And  each  clansman  had  an  equal  right  to  a  propor- 
tionate share  of  the  land  occui)ied  by  his  tribe.  On 
the  Continent  and  in  England  the  feudal  svstem  held 
sway,  and  it  debased  the  people  by  keei)iiig  them  de- 
pendent on  tlie  nobles  who  held  the  land.  The  Bre- 
hon  Code  held  sway  in  Ireland  until  after  the  English 
invasion. 

The  succession  to  all  dignilies  in  Ireland  was  regulated 
by  the  law  of  Tanistry,  which  provided  that  the  can- 
didate for  power  should  be  elected  by  the  clansmen, 
after  which  he  might  assume  the  name  of  Tanist,  or 
successor.  In  most  cases,  though,  the  oldest  son  or 
heir  to  the  prince  succeeded  him,  but,  as  was  often  the 
case,  when  he  was  not  acceptable  to  the  people,  a  ruler 
was  chosen  in  his  place.  Thus  the  dignity  was  here- 
ditary as  to  the  family,  but  elective  as  to  the  per- 
son. 

Tlie  provincial  kings  were  independent  of  each 
other,  but  subject  to  the  Ardrigh,  and  were  chosen  ac- 
cording to  the  law  of  Tanistry.  Their  capitals,  where 
they  resided,  were  Leighlin  for  the  province  of 
Leinster;  Emania  for  Ulster,  Cashel  for  Munster;  and 
Cruachin  tor  Connaught.  These  were  again  sub- 
divided into  districts  and  ruled  by  a  multitude  of  petty 
princes  or  chiefs,  who  acknowledged  the  authority  of 
their  respective  jirovincial  kings,  and  which  gave 
origin  to  the  numerous  clans  whose  quarrels  and 
jealousies  kept  the  country  in  continued  strife. 

After  the  death  of  Ollave  Fola  the  records  of  the 


PAGAN  IRELAND 


27 


country  were  greatly  neglected,  and  only  the  histories 
of  very  distinguished  rulers  were  preserved.  Kim- 
baeth,  who  built  the  magnificent  palace  of  Emania, 
which  became  the  headquarters  of  the  Red-Branch 
Knights,  again  collected  the  records  and  put  them 
in  a  reliable  and  satisfactory  condition.  About  this 
time  thePhcBnicians,  Etruscans,  and  Carthaginians  car- 
ried on  an  extensive  trade  with  Ireland.  About  five 
hundred  years  before  Christ,  Haniilcar  was  sent  by  the 
Carthaginian  Senate  to  explore  the  coast  of  Europe  be- 
yond the  Pillars  of  Hercules,  and  in  the  preserved  ac- 
count of  his  expedition  Ireland  is  mentioned  as  .the 
**Holy  Isle,"  whose  rich  soil  the  Hibernians  tilled.  It 
was  also  known  to  the  Greeks  about  the  same  time,  and 
Aristotle  alludes  to  it  by  the  name  of  lerne.  In  the 
second  century  of  the  Christian  era  the  country  was 
generally  known  by  the  name  of  Scotia,  so  called  in 
honor  of  the  Milesian  heroine  of  that  name.  After  thie 
invasion  of  Albania  that  country  was  also  called 
Scotia  by  the  conquerors,  in  honor  of  their  native  land, 
but  with  the  affix  of  Minor,  or  the  lesser,  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  mother  country,  which  was  desig- 
nated Scotia  Major,  or  the  greater  Scotia. 

From  the  reign  of  Aengus,  who  flourished  about  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  before  Christ,  down  to  the  in- 
troduction of  Christianity,  the  country  was  kept  in  one 
continual  ferment  by  the  dissensions  among  its  princes 
and  rulers,  and  the  extensive  foreign  expeditions  carried 
on  against  the  Picts  in  Albania  and  the  Romans  in 
Britain  and  Gaul. 

The  Irish,  or  more  prox')erly  speaking,  the  Dalriads, 
of  Ulster  had  established  a  colony  in  Albania  before 
the  birth  of  Christ.  Thev  and  their  kinsmen  in  Ulster 
were  considered  as  one  tribe,  and  Avere  for  some  time 
governed  by  one  chief.    The  colony  became  so  power- 


28 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PKKSKNT. 


fill  as  to  create  tlie  alarm  of  the  Plots,  and  to  excite  tlieir 
jealousy. 

In  the  reign  of  Carbre  II.,  or  about  the  year  2G8 
A.  D.,  Ossian,  the  great  bard  of  Ireland,  and  his  son 
Oscar,  both  descendants  of  the  warrior  Fiiigal,  and 
leaders  of  the  Fianu  of  Leinster,  nourished.  Carbre 
went  to  war  with  Leana,  King  of  Munster,  for  liai bor- 
ing the  Fiann  of  Leinst-er,  whom  he  had  disbanded 
and  outlawed.  In  the  battle  that  followed  at  Gabra, 
A.  D.  284,  both  Carbre  and  Oscar,  son  of  Ossian,  were 
killed.  From  the  death  of  Carbre  until  the  reign  of 
Miiredach,  A.  T>.  331,  there  were  no  events  of  great  his- 
torical importance  in  Ireland.  During  the  reign  of 
Muredachtlie  palace  of  Emania  in  Ulster  was  destroyed 
by  the  nu^n  of  Connaught. 

Ireland  at  this  time  was  in  a  very  prosperous  condition, 
and  the  ppople  had  acquired  considerable  wealth  iind 
power.  Old  English  writers  assert  that  they  were  **the 
most  learned  body  of  men  in  Europe,  were  eminently 
versed  in  astronomy  and  Grecian  literature,  aiul  stood 
unrivaled  in  the  cultivation  of  letters."  Even  at  this 
early  period  they  had  colleges  for  the  instruction  of 
bards  and  Druids,  to  which  students  flocked  from  all 
partsof  Europe.  The  English  historian  Whitakersays 
that  'in  the  reign  of  the  celebrated  Monaich  Niall,  the 
Arch  Druid  of  Ireland  was  acknowledged  the  soveiviirn 
l)ontitT  of  the  order  of  Druids  of  (faul,  Britain,  and 
Scotland."  The  Irish,  too,  were  at  this  period  well 
versed  in  the  manufacture  of  arms,  vessels,  ami  utensils 
for  domestic  use,  and  in  gold  chains  and  ornaments. 

The  funeral  services  of  the  Milesians  were  ])eculinr, 
and  had  been  brought  with  them  from  the  E:ist.  The 
body  was  laid  in  state,  or  as  we  say  now,  waked,  for 
a  few  days.  During  this  interval,  all  the  friends  nud 
neighbors  assembled  to  do  houor  to  the  departed.  The 


PAGAN  IKELAXD. 


29 


bards  sang  his  pedigree  and  exploits,  tne  Druids 
recited  prayers  and  used  charms  and  incantations, 
while  the  mourners  raised  the  caoine^  or  funeral  dirge, 
a  custom  stiU  observed  in  remote  parts  of  Ireland. 
The  grave  usually  faced  towards  the  east,  and  was 
lined  with  smooth  stones.  The  body  was  simply 
wrapped  in  a  cloak  and  laid  in  the  tomb,  over  which 
was  placed  a  mound,  or  a  slab  with  the  name  of  the 
deceased  engraven  uf)on  it. 

The  Picts  of  Albania  made  war  on  the  Irish  colony 
in  the  reign  of  Niall.  The  Dalriads,  justly  alarmed  at 
the  menacing  aspect  of  their  neighbors,  appealed  to  the 
Monarch  of  Inland,  to  whom  they  still  owed  allegiance, 
for  succor  and  protection.  Niall  responded  to  their 
call  bv  crossins:  over  to  Albania  at  the  head  of  a 
powerful  army,  which  he  transported  over  in  cuirachs 
and  large  galleys,  for  the  Irish  were  expert  seamen, 
having  learned  navigation  from  the  Phoenicians  who 
tmded  among  them,  and  soon  succeeded  in  reducing 
the  Picts  to  terms,  comj^elling  them  to  cede  the  terri- 
tories of  Cantire  and  Ar^rvle  to  the  Dalriads.  He 
next  invaded  Britain,  A.  D.  3SS,  and  ravaged  the 
count rv  before  him.  He  then  embarked  for  Armorica, 
in  Gaul,  and  returned  laden  with  captives  and  booty. 
Among  the  captives  taken  in  one  of  his  expeditions 
was  Siiccath,  a  youth  who  was  destined  to  spread 
the  light  cf  the  Gospel,  not  only  over  Ireland, 
but  also  over  a  great  part  of  Europe.  This  was  no 
other  than  Patrick,  afterwards  the  Apostle  of  Ireland, 
who  was  sixteen  vears  of  asre  at  the  time,  and  who 
was  accompanied  by  his  two  sisiers,  Lupida  and  Da- 
rerca. 

So  great  was  the  terror  Xiall  had  infused  into  the 
Britons  that,  as  the  poet  Claudian  informs  us,  they 
besought  the  Romans  to  j)rotect  them  from  his  mvages. 


30 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


and  Stiliclio,  a  general  of  Theodosius  the  Great,  was 
forced  to  send  additional  troops  to  their  aid. 

"When  Scots  came  thundering  from  the  Irish  shores, 
And  the  ocean  trembled,  struck  with  hoi>tile  oars." 

Niall,  or  ashe  is  called,  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages,'' 
was  killed  while  making  a  second  expedition  into  Gaul 
against  the  Romans,  near  the  river,  Loire,  by  Eocha, 
son  of  tlie  King  of  Leinster,  wliom  he  had  dej^osed  on 
account  of  his  crimes.  Niall,  who  was  slain  in  or  about 
the  year  403  A.  D.,  was  succeeded  by  Da  thy,  son  of 
Fiachra,  brother  of  the  monarch.  He  was  King  of 
Connaught  when  elected  Ardrigh,  butt  resigned  the 
throne  in  favor  of  his  brother  Amalgad,  who  gave  his 
name  to  Tyrawly,  in  tlie  County  Mayo.  In  the  reign  of 
Da  thy,  who  was  the  last  Pagan  monarch  of  Ireland, 
Nedfraoch,  of  the  race  of  Olioll-Olum,  governed 
Munster,  and  Eocha  ruled  in  Leinster. 

Datliy,  full  of  the  martial  spirit  of  his  race,  and 
fired  by  the  glorious  achievements  of  his  ancestors,  re- 
solved to  invade  Britain.  At  this  time  the  Picts  and 
Scots,  both  of  whom  were  the  implacable  enemies  of 
the  Britons,  conjointly  made  a  raid  on  their  neighbors. 
Dafhy,  after  his  victories  in  Britain,  entered  Gaul,  and 
taking  advantage  of  the  demoralized  state  of  the  Roman 
army,  who  were  fleeing  from  Britain,  he  followed  them 
up  to  the  very  foot  of  the  Alps,  where  he  was  killed  by 
lightning,  after  having  gained  several  victories  over 
those  who  disi)uted  his  x>assage. 


OHEISTIAN  IRELAND, 


31 


CHAPTER  11. 

CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 

The  Liglit  of  the  Gospel^St.  Patrick's  Mission— The 
Greatness  and  Glory  of  Christian  Ireland. 

Ireland,  Ghristian  Ireland,  presents  to  the  world  one 
of  the  grandest  pictures  in  either  sacred  or  profane 
history.  Here  we  see  a  proud,  warlike  people,  whose  • 
isoldiers  had  bidden  defiance  to  the  legions  of  Rome,  and 
whose  Sunburst  liad  floated  above  the  Eagles  of  the 
Csesars  even  at  the  very  foot  of  the  Alps,  Iwwing  in 
humble  s^ibmission  before  the  saving  banner  of  the 
Cross,  and  yielding  ready  obedience  to  the  strange 
doctrines  of  the  followers  of  the  divine  standard.  The 
fierce  and  warlike  tribes  and  chiefs,  who  were  embi  ttered 
by  constant  internecine  wars,  and  prejudiced  by  the 
machinations  of  the  Druids,  seemed  a  rather  intractable 
material  to  mould  to  the  teachings  and  doctrine  of 
Christianity.  The  results  proved  the  reverse,  for  the 
bloodless  victory  which  crowned  the  mission  of  St. 
Patrick  is  an  evidence  of  the  ready  pliancy  and  facility 
with  which  the  most  stubborn  and  fierce  natures  will 
yield  to  new  and  strange  impulses. 

While  in  other  countries  Chriotianity  has  been  the 
slow  work  of  time,  has  been  resisted  by  rulers  and  peo- 
ple, and  seldom  effected  without  a  lavish  effusion  of 
blood,  in  Ireland,  on  the  contrary,  by  the  influence  of 
one  zealous,  saintly  missionary,  and  with  little  previous 


* 


82  lEELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

preimration  of  the  soil  by  other  hands,  Christianity 
burst  forth  at  the  first  ray  of  the  apostolic  light,  and 
with  the  sudden  ripeness  of  a  northern  summer  at  once 
covered  the  whole  land  with  its  saving  truths  and 
blessed  fruits.  Kings  and  princes,  chiefs  and  nobles,  as 
if  acting  under  divine  impulse,  joined  the  standard  of 
the  Cross  and  soon  beci\rae  its  warmest  defenders.  Chiefs 
at  variance  in  all  else,  met  as  brothers  beneath  the 
Christian  banner.  The  ^Droud  Druid,  the  lenrned 
Brehon,  and  the  gushing  bard  laid  their  superstitions 
meekly  at  the  foot  of  the  Cross,  while  the  Slienacus, 
who  heretofore  narrated  the  martial  exploits  of  heroes 
and  chiefs,  and  the  loves  of  fair  dames  and  proud 
crallants.  now  related  the  mvsterious  wonders  of  the  life 
and  sufferino;  of  Jesus  of  iSTazareth.  Bv  a  sinoular 
blessing  of  Providence,  unexampled  iu  the  Avhole 
history  of  the  Church,  a  single  drop  of  blood  was  not 
shed  on  account  of  religion  through  the  entire  course 
of  this  wonderful  revolution,  by  which  in  the  space  of 
a  few  years  IreLand  was  brought  tranquilly  under  the 
dominion  of  the  Gospel. 

The  time  and  birth-place  of  St.  Patrick  have  both 
been  warmly  discussed  and  disputed  by  writers.  Though 
Usher,  Ware,  Colgan,  Jocelyn,  and  other  eminent  writers 
assert  that  he  was  born  in  Scotland,  Dr.  Lanigan  and  a 
scrutinv  of  old  works  have  established  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  native  of  Boulogne-sur-Mer,  in  France.  He  says 
himself,  in  his  "Confessions":  ''Mv  father  was  Cal- 
purnius,  a  deacon  of  the  town  of  Bonaven  Tabernise. 
He  had  near  the  town  a  small  villa,  Enon,  where  I  was 
made  captive."  It  is  an  established  fact  that  there  is 
no  place  which  might  correspond  with  the  name  of 
TabernifE  in  Scotland,  but  some  writers,  who  would 
persist  in  makiu-;  the  Saint  a  Scotchman,  try  to  escape 
this  difficulty  by  describing  the  place  as  an  old  Roman 


CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 


38 


encampment  near  Diinbarton,  but  which  time  has  eradi- 
cated. Boulogne- sur  Mer,  in  Picardy,  France,  corre- 
sponds to  Bonaven,  Tabernise,  as  has  been  proved  even 
by  French  vt^riters,  and  by  tlie  traditions  still  preserved 
in  that  part  of  France  relative  to  the  Saint.  Keating 
and  O' Flaherty,  in  their  histories  of  Ireland,  accept  this 
view  of  it.  All  the  circumstances  connected  with  his 
early  life  confirm  the  impression  that  he  was  born  in 
Gaul,  His  family  resided  there,  and  there  he  was  taken 
prisoner  in  his  early  youth.  llis  mother,  Conchessa,  was 
a  near  relative  of  St.  Martin  of  Tours,  ;ind  was  undoubt- 
edly a  native  of  Brittany,  in  Armorican  Gaul.  The  family 
of  the  Apostle  was  respectable,  as  the  Saint  himself 
states  in  his  Epistle  to  Caroticus,  in  which  he  says,  "I 
was  noble  according  to  the  flesh." 

St.  Fiach,  in  his  hymn,  informs  us  that  Patrick  was 
baptized  Succath,  which  means,  "Strong  in  battle." 
The  scholiast  on  this  hymn  adds  that  he  was  called 
Corthraige,  while  m  slavery,  on  account  of  being  sold 
to  four  masters ,  Magonius  by  St.  Germanus,  while  a 
disciple  of  his ,  and  Patrick  by  St.  Celestine,  as  a 
mark  of  dignity  In  all  his  writings  we  never  find  him 
styling  himself  anything  but  Patrick .  the  probability 
is  that  this  was  his  original  name,  and  that  the  others 
were  given  to  liim  to  indicate  certain  traits  in  his 
character. 

Speaking  of  his  early  youth,  he  says  in  his  "  Con- 
fessions": *'I  knew  not  God,  and  was  led  into  captivity 
by  the  Irish,  as  we  deserved,  because  we  estranged  oui- 
selves  from  God  and  did  not  keep  his  laws,  and  were 
disobedient  to  our  pastors,  who  admonished  us  with 
regard  to  our  salvation,  and  the  Lord  brought  down  upon 
us  the  anger  of  his  Spirit,  and  dispersed  us  among 
many  nations,  even  to  the  extremity  of  the  earth,  where 
my  lowlinefe  was  conspicuous  among  foreigners,  and 


34 


.IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


where  the  Lord  discovered  unto  me  a  sense  of  my  un- 
belief, that,  even  though  late,  I  should  be  converted 
with  my  whole  heart  to  the  Lord  my  God,  who  had 
respect  to  my  humiliation,  and  pitied  my  youth  and 
ignorance,  even  before  I  knew  him,  and  before  I  was 
wise  and  could  distinguish  between  right  and  wrong, 
and  strengthened  me,  and  cherished  me  as  a  father 
would  a  son.  This  I  know  most  surely,  that  before  I 
was  humbled  I  was  like  a  stone  that  lies  deej^  in  the 
mud,  and  He  who  is  mfghty  came  and  in  his  mercy 
raised  me  up,  and  again  delivered  me  and  fixed  me  in 
this  ]ilace;  and  from  thence  I  ought  loudly  to  cry  out 
and  to  return  thanks  to  the  Lord  for  his  too  great 
benelits,  here  and  forever,  which  the  mind  of  man  can- 
not properly  estimate." 

How  wonderful  indeed  are  the  ways  of  the  Lord, 
and  how  often  does  he  bring  forth  the  greatest  bless- 
ings out  of  tribulation  and  sulferings.  lie  allowed 
his  servant  Joseph  to  be  borne  into  captivity,  in  order 
to  save  Egypt  and  Israel  from  the  horrors  oL'  famine, 
and  that  he  might  become  the  savior  of  ]«is  people. 
So  with  Patrick,  the  Lord  willed  that  he  should  be- 
come captive,  that  he  might  conquer  his  conquerors 
and  lead  his  enemies  out  of  the  bondage  of  sin  and 
inlidelity  unto  the  light  of  the  Gospel. 

The  most  eminent  writers  on  the  ha^ioloi^v  of  Ireland 
admit  that  Christianity  was  introduced  into  Ireland  as 
early  as  the  second  century  of  the  Christian  era.  Cormao- 
Ulfada,  Monarch  of  Ireland  in  the  third  centur}',  whose 
piety  and  leaning  to  Chnstianity  liad  made  him  odious 
to  the  Pagans,  is  said  to  have  encouraged  the  Christian 
religion.  This  rea<'hing  the  ears  of  St.  Celestine  I., 
this  great  Pope  resolved  to  send  missionaries  among 
the  Irish  people.  Tlie  first  whom  he  sent  with  full 
canonical  powers  was  Paladius,  a  deacon  of  the  Koman 


CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 


35 


Church,  who,  having  been  ordained  Archbishop  of  all 
Ireland,  set  out  on  his  mission,  accompanied  by  twelve 
assistants,  all  as  zealous  as  himself.  They  brought 
with  them  some  volumes  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment and  several  precious  relics,  including  those  of  Sts. 
Peter  and  Paul.  They  landed  in  the  province  of 
Leinster,  where  they  were  badly  received  by  the  Pagans. 
Jocelyn  quotes  a  proverb  current  in  the  country,  to  the 
effect  that  "  God  did  not  reserve  for  Paladius,  but  for 
Patrick,  the  conversion  of  Ireland."  However,  they 
remained  for  some  time  in  the  country,  baptizing  several 
persons,  and  founded  three  churches — namely,  Kill- 
Pin,  Teacli-na-Romanach,  or  "House  of  the  Romans," 
and  Domnach-Arte.  Paladius  and  his  followers  were  ex- 
pelled from  the  country  by  ISTathi,  the  then  prince  of 
the  province.  This  holy  missionary  withdrew  to 
Britain,  and  lived  for  some  time  among  the  Picts.  bit. 
Prosper  places  the  mission  of  Paladius  in  Ireland 
in  the  year  431  of  the  Christian  era,  while  the  Ven- 
erable Bede  fixes  it  eight  years  earlier.  Be  this 
as  it  may,  the  conversion  of  Ireland  remained  for  St. 
Patrick. 

The  date  of  St.  Patrick's  birth  and  of  his  captivity 
are  also  matters  of  much  conjecture  among  historians. 
It  is  generally  agreed,  though,  that  he  was  brought  to 
Ireland  as  one  of  NialPs  captives.  Tliis  monarch  invaded 
Gaul  in  the  vear  388,  and  we  are  inclined  to  the  belief 
that  it  was  in  this  expedition  the  youth  was  made  cap- 
tive, and  not  in  his  subsequent  one,  in  wliich  Niall 
perished.  As  Patrick  was  at  the  time  of  his  captivity 
entering  upon  his  sixteenth  year,  this  would  place  the 
year  of  his  birth  in  372  or  373.  WJien  carried  to 
Ireland  Patrick  was  sold  to  one  Milcho-Mac-Iluanan, 
a  petty  prince  in  Ulster,  who  lived  near  the  mountain 
of  Slieve-MiSj  and  his  two  sisters  were  sold  at  the 


96 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


same  time  to  parties  living  in  the  present  County 
Louth. 

In  his  ''Confessions"  he  gives  ns  an  account  of  how 
he  occupied  his  time  during  his  captivity,  and  says:  '*  I 
always  became  strengthened  in  the  belief,  love,  and 
fear  of  God,  and  prayed  at  least  a  hnndred  times  a  day, 
and  as  often  during  the  night.''  Warned  by  a  dream, 
he  made  his  escape  in  the  seventh  year  of  his  captivity. 
After  undergoing  many  hardships  and  dangers,  both 
by  sea  and  land,  he  arrived  in  his  native  country  in 
the  year  A.  D.  396. 

There  he  remained  for  some  time,  but  admonished  by 
a  vision  to  return  to  Ireland,  in  order  to  rescue  the  in- 
habitants from  the  errors  of  idolatry,  he  resolved  to 
hearken  to  the  voice  as  if  it  came  from  the  Lord.  He 
was  then  about  twenty-three  years  of  age.  He  went 
first  to  the  Monastery  of  Marmontiers.  which  was  built 
near  Tours  by  St.  Martin.  Here  he  spent  some  years 
in  the  practice  of  piety  and  monastic  discipline.  He 
went  to  Rome  in  the  year  403,  and  was  admitted  a 
regular  student  of  St.  John  of  Lateran,  where  he  spent 
some  time.  He  afterwards  visited  many  holy  places 
and  shrines,  and  is  said  to  have  performed  several 
miracles.  He  lived  under  the  holy  St.  Germain,  Bishop 
of  Auxerre,  several  years. 

Patrick  was  thirty-eifirht  years  of  asre  when  the  news 
of  Paladins' s  death  reached  him.  Acting  on  his  own 
inclination  and  the  advice  of  St.  Germain,  he  went  to 
Rome,  carry inix  letters  from  St.  Germain  to  St.  Celes- 
tine,  who  was  then  Pope,  recommending  him  for  the 
Irish  mission.  Celestine  himself  consecrated  him  and 
appointed  him  Archbishop  of  Ireland,  and  sent  him, 
invested  with  apostolical  authority,  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  the  inhabitants  of  that  island.  Twenty 
priests  and  deacons  were  likewise  ordained  to  accom 


CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 


37 


pany  St.  Patrick  on  his  missioii.  He  returned  to 
Auxerre  to  take  leave  of  St.  Germain,  and  having  re- 
ceived several  presents  from  this  holy  man,  as  well  as 
his  benediction,  he  set  out  on  a  mission  the  most  won- 
derful in  its  result  in  Christian  history. 

He  landed  on  the  shores  of  Britain,  and  preached  for 
a  short  time  in  the  neighborhood  of  Monevia,  or  St. 
David's,  in  Wales.  He  also  made  a  short  visit  to 
Cornwall.  Borlase  saj^s:  ' '  By  persisting  in  their  Druid- 
ism  the  Britons  of  Cornwall  drew  the  attention  of  St. 
Patrick  to  them,  who,  about  the  year  432,  with  twenty 
companions,  halted  on  his  way  to  Ireland  on  the  shores 
of  Cornwall,  where  he  is  said  to  have  built  a  monas- 
tery." 

St.  Patrick  landed  in  Ireland,  in  the  County  Wick- 
low,  in  the  year  432,  and  in  the  fourth  year  of  the  reign 
of  Laogare,  Monarch  of  Ireland.  He  was  vainly 
opposed  by  iNathi,  prince  of  that  part  of  the  country, 
who  had  banished  Paladins,  who  tried  to  incite  the 
Pagans  against  him.  While  here  St.  Patrick  baptized 
Senell,  of  the  royal  race  of  the  Kings  of  Leinster,  who 
gladly  aided  him  in  his  missionary  labors.  Soon 
afterwards,  being  threatened  by  the  inhabitants,  in- 
cited by  their  prince,  he  returned  to  his  ships,  and 
after  resting  at  an  island  near  Dublin,  since  called 
Inis-Phadruig  after  him,  he  sailed  for  the  Xorth, 
and  landed  in  the  Bay  ot*  Ilber-Slaeng,  at  present 
Dundrum,  in  the  County  Down.  Dichu,  lord  of  the 
territory,  taking  them  for  pirates,  assembled  his 
'  followers  to  give  them  battle,  but  being  suddenly  struck 
with  the  presence  of  St.  Patrick,  he  was  converted  on 
the  spot  and  soon  after  baptized.  This  was  the  lirst 
conversion  in  Ulster,  and  a  church  was  built  on  the 
spot,  which  is  two  miles  from  the  present  city  of 
Down. 


38 


IRELAND,  PAST  A^D  PRESENT. 


After  providing  for  tlie  necessities  of  the  rising 
Church  in  that  portion  of  Down,  St.  Patrick  took  leave 
of  his  disciple  Diclni,  and  returned  to  Meath.  He 
landed  at  a  place  called  Cobbdi,  below  Drogheda,  at 
the  mouth  of  the  Boyne.  His  intention  was  to  visit 
Tara,  the  residence  of  the  monarch,  during  a  great 
assembly  of  i)rinces,  Druids,  priests,  and  warriors, 
which  was  convened  tliere.  On  his  journey  he'  Avas 
hospitably  received  by  Sesgnen,  lord  of  the  territory, 
whom  he  baptized  with  his  whole  family.  The  Saint 
and  his  followers  arrived  at  a  place,  now  Slaine,  on  the 
Boyne,  the  day  before  Easter,  and  erected  a  tent  there 
in  sight  of  Tara.  The  monarch  ordered  the  Bael  hre  to 
be  lit,  during  which  all  other  fires  were  to  be  ex- 
tinguished. Patrick,  disregarding  the  custom,  lit  a 
huge  fire  in  front  of  his  tent,  and  was  immediately 
summoned  before  the  monarch.  Patrick  approached 
the  august  assembly,  the  most  royal-looking  man  there, 
and  like  Paul  before  Agrippa,  he  preached  before  them 
th^  word  of  God  in  such  convincing  words  that  many, 
even  the  Arch-Druid,  Dubtach,  and  Ero,  son  of  Dego, 
who  was  afterwards  Bishop  of  Slaine,  poured  forth 
their  praise  of  the  true  God. 

It  is  said  that  the  preaching  of  Patrick  before  this 
assembly,  representing  a  luition,  was  attended  by  mira- 
cles and  wonders.  This  we  can  credit,  for  there  is 
nothing  on  record  like  the  success  of  Patrick's  efforts  at 
Tara.  There  was  a  vast  assemblage  of  great  and  learned 
men,  full  of  the  su^^erstitions  of  their  race  and  their 
fathers,  converted  as  if  by  a  miracle. 

The  Saint  next  repaired  to  Tailton,  where  the  annual 
games  and  military  exercises  were  celebrated,  and 
preached  the  Gospel  to  the  nobles  and  their  followers. 
He  soon  converted  a  large  number  of  nobles  and 
X^rincesses,  including Ethne  and  Fedeline,  daughters  of 


CHRISTIAN  IRELAND 


39 


Laogare,  the  monarch,  and  also  the  Druids  Mael  and 
Caplaet,  who  were  their  tutors. 

As  we  are  not  writing  a  life  of  St.  Patrick,  we  can- 
not follow  him  through  his  wonderful  mission.  On  his 
way  from  Tara  he  visited  the  Hy-Nialls,  children  of  the 
Monarch  ]N"iall,  who  was  brother  to  Laogare,  who  occu- 
pied the  southern  portion  of  Meath,  and  made  some 
converts  among  them.  He  also  baptized  Eana,  Prince 
of  Kinel-Eana,  near  the  Shannon,  together  with  his  son 
Cormac,  afterwards  Archbishop  of  Ardmach.  In  Bref ny, 
the  present  County  Leitrim,  lie  destroyed  the  great  idol 
Crom-Cruach,  and  baptized  numbers  of  the  inhabitants 
and  left  priests  to  minister  to  them. 

He  next  entered  Connaught,  where  a  prince  of  the 
Hy-Brunes  (O'Briens)  gave  him  a  large  tract  of  land,  now 
called  Elphin,  where  he  founded  an  episcopal  see.  He 
traveled  through  Clare  and  Gal  way,  making  numerous 
converts  and  establishing  churches.  At  the  approach 
of  Lent  he  entered  to  a  high  mountain  near  the  coast, 
now  called  Croagh-Phadruig,  County  Mayo.,  where  he 
spent  forty  days  in  meditation  and  prayer.  While  here, 
Jocelyn  says,  he  collected  all  the  serpents  and  reptiles 
in  the  country  and  cast  them  into  the  ocean,  but  there 
is  strong  evidence  that  Ireland  was  exempt  from  poison- 
ous animals  long  before  the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick;  in 
fact,  there  is  no  proof  that  such  ever  existed  on  the 
island  at  all. 

After  his  retreat  on  the  mountain  he  celebrated  Easter 
in  the  Church  of  Abha-Feehuir,  in  the  territory  of 
Umaille,  or  O'Mally  country.  He  preached  for  some 
time  in  Tirawly,  and  proceeded  along  the  River  ]\foy, 
until  he  reached  Killala,  where  he  built  a  clinn^h  and 
established  an  episcopal  see,  the  first  bishop  of  which 
was  St.  Muredach. 

After  spending  seven  years  spreading  the  Gospel  in 


40 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Connaiightj  he  returned  to  Ulster  in  441,  visiting  on  his 
way  Sligeach-Magh-Ean,  a  large  plain  in  Donegal  near 
Lough  Earne.  He  traveled  chieliy  along  the  coast,  visit- 
ing several  princes  and  chiefs,  making  numerous  con- 
verts and  building  innumerable  churches. 

St.  Patrick,  having  completed  his  mission  in  the 
districts  bordering  on  Lough  Foyle,  crossed  the  river 
Bann  to  Curbralhew,  now  Coleraine,  and  after  preaching 
there  for  some  time  he  proceeded  through  the  country 
qf  the  Dalrieda,  comprising  Down  and  the  southern 
part  of  Antrim,  ^vhere  he  founded  several  churches. 
He  next  pleached  along  the  borders  of  Lough  Neagh 
with  equal  success. 

Being  resolved  on  founding  a  metropolitan  see,  he 
proceeded  to  Ardmach,  which  was  so  called  from  its  ele- 
vated position,  or  as  some  writers  assert,  from  its  being 
the  burial-place  of  Macha,  wife  of  Prince  Nievy.  Herein 
the  year  445  St.  Patrick  laid  the  foundation  both  of  a 
city  and  church.  He  also  erected  around  it  monasteries 
and  schools  which  afterwards  became  celebrated.  In  448  . 
our  holy  Apostle  held  a  synod  at  Armagh,  and  among  the 
bishops  present  were  Auxil  and  Isernin,  regular  canons 
of  St.  John  of  Lateran,  who  had  accompanied  him  from 
Rome.  He  also  ordained  several  priests  to  attend  to 
the  missions  he  had  established.  As  yet  St.  Patrick  had 
not  visited  Munster,  or  even  but  a  small  portion  of 
Leinster.  But  in  the  meantime  the  light  of  the  Gospel 
was  shed  on  the  inhabitants.  Writers  of  Irish  eccle- 
siastical history  for  the  most  part  admit  that  when 
Paladins  was  driven  out  of  Ireland  several  of  his  fol- 
lowers remained  after  him,  preaching  the  Gospel. 
Among  them  was  St.  Ibear,  who  fled  to  Beg-Erin,  now 
Bergy,  in  Wexford,  where  he  established  a  church;  St. 
Kieran  of  Saigir,  who  also  established  a  monastery  there, 
which  was  afterwards   transferred  to  Kilkenny;  St. 


CHRISTIAN  IRELAND. 


41 


Beelan,  who  established  a  noted  monastery  at  Ardmore, 
County  Waterford;  and  St.  Ailbe,  who  established  a 
monastery  at  Emly  in  Tipperary,  and  was  therefore  the 
first  bishop  of  the  see. 

Having  settled  the  affairs  of  the  Church  of  Ardmach, 
he  proceeded  to  Leinster  through  Meath,  and  was  every- 
where received  with  great  reverence  and  distinction.  At 
Bally- Ath-Cleath,  now  Dublin,  all  the  people  turned  out 
to  welcome  him;  he  baptized  them  all,  including  several 
members  of  the  king's  family.  St.  Patrick  spent  the 
whole  of  that  year  preaching  in  Leinster,  where  he 
founded  a  great  number  of  churches.  He  visited  Leix, 
Ossory,  Hy-Kinsellagh,  and  baptized  the  son  of  the 
King  of  Leinster. 

He  next  proceeded  to  Munster,  and  going  straight  to 
Cashel,  was  received  by  the  king  and  his  court.  The 
prince,  Aongus,  proved  the  sincerity  of  his  faith,  for 
during  the  ceremony  of  baptism,  the  Saint  having  leaned 
on  his  pastoral  staff,  which  was  pointed  with  iron,  and 
which  by  chance  rested  on  Aongus' s  foot,  pierced  it 
through.  The  prince  never  complained,  and  when  re- 
monstrated with,  he  modestly  replied  that  he  thought 
it  was  a  part  of  the  ceremony.  It  is  said  that  St. 
Patrick's  precursors,  Ailbe,  Deelan,  Kieran,  and  Hear, 
joined  him  in  a  synod  at  Cashel  and  acknowledged  him 
as  primate  of  the  Church  in  Ireland,  and  he  in  return 
confirmed  them  in  the  possession  of  their  churches  and 
sees.  From  Cashel  the  Saint  made  a  visitation  to  dif- 
ferent parts  of  the  country,  to  Cork  and  Kerry,  preach- 
ing the  Gospel  and  establishing  missions,  after  which 
he  returned  to  Cashel,  where  he  was  joyously  received 
by  the  king.  Indeed,  in  such  veneration  was  he  held 
by  the  royal  family  that  a  stone  which  he  used  in  cele, 
brating  mass,  called  Leach-Phadruig,  was  placed 
under  the  coronation  chair.    In  the  year  455  our  Saint 


* 


42 


IKELAXD,  PAST  AND  TKESEXT. 


took  his  departure  from  Munster  and  returned  to  Ulster, 
where  he  devoted  his  time  to  building  churches,  making 
new  converts,  and  strengthening  old  ones  in  tlie  faith. 

As  if  God  had  poured  his  blessing  with  his  savings 
truths  on  tlie  country,  during  St.  Patrick's  mission  a 
time  of  profound  peace  prevailed,  and  Laogare  sum- 
moned a  convention  at  Taia  to  reform  the  religious  and 
political  affairs  of  the  nation,  at  which  assembly  St. 
Patrick  and  other  bishops  took  their  places  instead  o£ 
the  Druids,  as  heretofore. 

Our  glorious  Saint  lived  to  see  the  Church  fully  es- 
tablished in  Ireland.  Though  advanced  in  years, '  he 
never  relaxed  in  his  spiritual  or  temporal  exercises. 
He  always  traveled  on  foot,  slept  on  the  bare  ground, 
recited  the  x^salter,  besides  a  number  of  hymns  and 
prayers  every  day.  At  length,  rich  in  virtue  and 
cheered  by  the  prosperous  state  of  the  Church  in 
Ireland,  he  went  to  his  reward  in  the  year  493,  in  the 
one  hundred  and  twentieth  year  of  Lis  age,  in  the  reign 
of  the  monarch  Luglias  YII.  and  the  pontificate  of  St. 
Gesalius,  liaving,  during  his  long  and  laborious  mis- 
sionary career,  converted  all  Ireland,  built  three  hun- 
dred and  sixtv-five  churches,  consecrated  over  three 
hundred  bishops,  and  ordained  about  three  thousand 
priests.  He  was  not  buried  in  the  Monastery  of  Sab- 
hall,  where  he  died,  nor  in  Ardmach,  his  primatical  see, 
but  in  the  city  of  Down,  where  his  remains  were  long 
lionored  on  account  of  the  miracles  and  graces  granted 
by  God  to  the  faithful  through  his  saintly  intercession. 

The  growth  of  Christianity  in  Ireland  was  as  won- 
derful  as  its  introduction.  In  less  than  a  century  after 
the  arrival  of  St.  Patrick,  by  the  labors  and  pious  zeal 
of  its  disciples,  the  land  became  covered  with  churches 
and  monasteries,  which  were  filled  with  devout  wor- 
shii^ers.    Eaiinent  schools  and  seminaries  flourished, 


PAGAN  IRELAND. 


43 


whicli  soon  became  the  resort  for  students  from  all 
parts  of  Europe,  and  which  supplied  their  colleges  with 
teachers,  their  churches  with  monks  and  missionary 
prie'sts.  Among  Patrick's  great  successors  were  St. 
Brigid,  the  Mary  of  Ireland,"  who  is  venerated  as 
the  patroness  of  the  countrj^.  She  was  born  during  the 
lifetime  of  St.  Patrick,  and  most  likely  received  his 
benediction,  for  she  founded  the  celebrated  Monastery 
of  Kildare  in  the  vear  480,  where  she  died  in  her  seven- 
tieth  year,  A.  D.  525.  Monastic  schools  sprang  up 
throughout  the  country,  among  the  most  famous  of 
which  were  Mayo,  founded  by  St.  Ailbe;  Clowes,  by 
St.  Tigernach;  "  Arran  of  the  Saints,"  by  St.  Enda; 
Clonard,  by  St.  Finian;  Louth,  by  St.  Mochta;  Tuam, 
by  St.  Jarlath:  Moville,  by  St.  Finian;  Clonfert  Malua, 
by  St.  Malua;  Clon  Mac-Noise,  by  St.  Kieran;  and 
Lismore,  by  St.  Carthagh.  The  chief  objects  of  these 
sacred  retreats  were  to  educate  holy  men,  who  might 
devote  their  lives  to  prayer,  meditation,  and  study, 
and  educate  boys  as  missioners  to  spread  the  Gospel  in 
other  lands,  as  well  as  to  provide  for  the  wants  of  the 
poor  and  needy. 

In  the  words  of  Montalembert,  in  these  sacred  retreats 
''were  trained  an  entire  population  of  philosophers,  of 
writers,  of  architects,  of  carvers,  of  painters,- of  cali- 
graphers,  of  musicians,  poets,  and  historians;  but  above 
all,  of  missionaries  and  preachers,  destined  to  spread 
the  light  of  the  Gospel  and  of  Christian  education, 
not  only  in  all  the  Celtic  countries,  of  which  Ireland 
was  always  the  nursing  mother,  but  throughout  Europe, 
among  all  the  Teutonic  races — among  the  Fianks  and 
Burgundians,  who  were  already  masters  of  Gaul,  as 
well  as  amid  the  dwellers  by  the  Rhine  and  the 
Danube,  and  up  to  the  frontiers  of  Italy."  This  is  no 
vain  or  eulogistic  tribute,  foi  there  is  little  doubt  but 


44 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


the  celebrated  St.  Brendan  crossed  the  Atlantic  and 
landed  in  America.  The  great  Virgilias  (O'Farrell), 
Bishop  of  Saltzburg,  who  asserted  the  sphericity  of 
the  earth  in  the  eighth  century,  was  an  Irishman.-  It 
is  an  admitted  fact  that  when  the  mission  of  St. 
Augustine  had  failed  in  England,  the  Irish  monks 
succeeded  in  Christianizing  wholly  or  partially  live 
out  of  the  seven  kingdoms  of  the  Heptarchy.  lona, 
the  shrine  of  Columbkill,  spread  its  Christian  light 
over  Scotland  and  Wales. 

An  Irishman  is  the  patron  saint  of  Austria;  and  to 
missionary  Irish  priests  Gaul,  Switzerland,  and  Ger- 
many chiefly  owe  the  introduction  of  Christianity. 
Irishmen  have  reason  to  be  proud  of  these  facts,  yet 
how  little  is  generally  known  of  the  lives  and  labors 
of  the  great  men  who  have  made  the  literature  of  Ire- 
land famous,  and  who  have  borne  from  her  shores  the 
standard  of  the  Cross,  to  unfurl  its  sacred  folds  on  the 
Christian  battle  fields  of  the  world. 


THE  ISLAND  OF  SAINTS. 


45 


CHAPTER  III. 

IRELAND  THE  ISLAND  OF  SAINTS. 

The  Banish  Invasion — From  the  Arrival  of  the  Danes 
to  that  of  the  Anglo-Normans — The  Battle  of  Clon- 
tarf. 

Although  the  Christian  religion  was  universally 
established  in  Ireland  at  the  time  of  St.  Patrick's  death, 
and  both  princes  and  people  worshiped,  the  true  God, 
it  appears  that  the  monarch  had  apostatized,  and  we 
are  informed  in  history  that  his  death  was  caused  by 
lightning  at  Acliacharea,  in  Meath,  and  his  descendants 
were  excluded  from  the  throne,  as  St.  Patrick  foretold 
they  would  be  in  chastisement  for  their  impiety. 

In  the  reign  of  Dermid,  which  commenced  A.D. 
544,  a  terrible  plague  broke  out  in  Ireland,  which  carried 
off  nearly  one- third  of  the  people.  Tiie  celebrated  St. 
Columba,  or  Columbkill,  Apostle  of  the  Picts,  flourished 
about  this  time,  and  established  the  renowned  Monas- 
tery of  lona  in  Scotland. 

During  the  reign  of  Dermid  a  national  assembly  was 
held  at  Tara,  at  which  a  certain  prince,  having  com- 
mittal an  act  of  violence,  fled  for  safety  to  a  church 
near  by,  but  the  monarch  ordered  him  to  be  broughc 
forth  and  put  to  death.  To  punish  this  violation  of  the 
right  of  sanctuary,  the  clergy,  headed  by  St.  Ruadan, 
passed  in  solemn  procession  around  Tara,  invoking  the 
malediction  of  God  upon  it.    From  that  day  no  king 


46 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


ever  safc  at  Tara,  and  soon  afterwards  Dermid  was  killed 
in  battle.  After  this  the  monarchs  usuall}^  dwelt  at 
,  Ail  each  in  Ulster,  but  their  influence  was  greatly 
weakened  by  the  estrangement  of  the  other  provinces, 
each  of  which  contended  for  the  chief  capital.  During 
the  reign  of  Hugh  11. ,  who  ascended  the  throne  A.D. 
572,  a  great  national  assembly  or  convention  was  held 
at  Dromkeat,  for  the  purpose  of  taking  measures  to 
check  the  growing  power  and  insolence  of  the  bards; 
also,  to  regulate  the  tribute  on  the  Irish  colony  in 
Albania,  and  to  depose  the  Prince  of  Ossory  for  refusing 
to  pay  tribute  to  the  supreme  monarch.  The  con- 
vention was  presided  over  by  the  monarch  in  person. 
St.  Columba  and  Aidan,  King  of  Dalradia,  were  also 
present  to  plead  the  cause  of  the  Albanian  colony. 
Through  the  influence  of  St.  Columba  the  bards  were 
spared  the  suppression  which  threatened  them,  and 
were  snbjected  to  certain  salutary  regulations  and 
restrictions,  and  were  also  assigned  land  on  which  to 
reside,  on  condition  that  they  would  give  free  instruc- 
tion to  all  who  sought  it.  The  colony  of  Dalradia  in 
Scotland  was  declared  free  and  independent  of  either 
tribute  or  homage  to  the  Monarch  of  Ireland,  while  the 
case  of  the  Prince  of  Ossorv  was  left  nndecided. 

Hugh  III.  ascended  the  throne  in  ^93,  but  little 
is  known  of  his  reign.  Indeed,  so  great  was  the 
sanctity  of  the  nation  and  the  piety  of  the  people  at 
this  period,  that  the  annalists,  who  were  generally 
monks,  devoted  their  labors  more  to  the  ecclesiastical 
than  to  the  civil  affairs  of  the  nation.  On  this  account 
the  history  of  the  times  is  barren  in  everything  except 
the  founding  of  monasteries  and  religions  institutions, 
some  of  \vliich  became  renowned  not  only  at  home,  but 
also  throughout  Europe.  Indeed,  we  might  justly 
attribute  the  rapid  s^iread  of  the  Gospel  iu  Europe,  in  a 


THE  ISLAND  OF  SAINTS. 


47 


greafc  measure,  to  the  nionastic  institutions  of  Ireland. 
They  sent  forth  their  missionary  j)riests  to  plant  the 
Cross  in  lands  shrouded  in  the  darkness  of  Pagan 
infidelity,  and  to  coniirm  the  converts  already  embraced 
in  the  fold,  by  instructing  them  to  practice  the  faith 
and  dedicate  themselves  to  God,  and  by  giving  them 
examples,  by  their  exemplary  lives,  of  the  observance 
of  all  pious  works  of  sanctity  and  charity,  as  well  as 
how  to  practice  penance  and  self-mortilications. 

Even  where  St.  xiugustine,  who  was  sent  A.  D.  596 
by  Pope  Gregor3^  the  Great,  with  a  body  of  monks,  to 
preach  the  Gospel  to  the  Saxons,  failed, — for  he, only 
succeeded  in  converting  Kent, — the  Irisli  monks,  aided 
by  those  from  lona,  soon  spread  the  light  among  the 
inliabitants,  and  succeeded  in  bringing  them  within  the 
fold  of  the  true  God.  Camden,  an  English  historian, 
speaking  of  these  missionaries,  says  the  disciples  of 
St.  Patrick  made  such  great  progress  in  Christianity, 
that  in  the  following  age  Ireland  was  called  the  '  Island 
of  Saints,'  "  and  none  could  be  more  learned  and  holy 
than  the  Irish  monks  in  their  own  country,  in  Britain, 
and  on  the  Continent  of  Europe.  Even  the  Venerable 
Bede,  the  father  of  English  lustor}^  declares  that  dur- 
ing this  age  "Ireland  supplied  all  Europe  with  multi- 
tudes of  zealous  missionaries,  who  announced  the  name 
of  Jesus  Christ  among  some  nations,  and  revived  it 
among  others." 

Among  Ireland's  great  missionary  priests  of  the  time 
was  St.  Columbanus,  who  about  the  year  58.)  left 
Ireland  with  twelve  companions  and  passed  into  Gaul. 
On  account  of  the  invasion  of  the  barbarians  and  the 
general  negligence  among  the  clergy  there,  many 
abuses  existed  and  discipline  was  entirel}^  neglected. 
Our  Saint  attacked  the  abuses  in  the  Church,  and  the 
sanctity  of  his  life  added  weight  to  hi^  instructions, 


48 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESE> 


and  induced  numbers  to  abandon  their  evil  ways  and  ^ 
become  zealous  members  of  the  Church.    His  reputa- 
tion at  length  reached  King  Gontram  of  Burgundy,  • 
wlio  gave  him  land,  on  which  he  built  the  famous  . 
Monastery    of    Luxevil,    and    afterwards   that  of 
Fontaine.    His  labors  and  piety  were  so  great  that  he 
has  been  recognized  as  the  Apostle  of  Eastern  France. 
He  next  preached  to  the  Pagans  in  Switzerland,  and  then 
went  preaching  the  Gospel  into  Italy,  where  he  was 
well  received  by  King  Agilulph  of  Lombardy,  where 
he  established  the  great  Monastery  of  Bobbio,  in  which 
he  died  in  615. 

The  town  of  St.  Gall,  in  France,  was  called  after  St. 
Gall,  a  follower  of  Columbaniis,  who  founded  a  cele- 
brated monastery  there;  St.  Fridolin  followed  in  their 
footsteps,  and  his  memory  was  celebrated  for  centuries 
in  Lorraine,  Alsace,  Germany,  and  Switzerland,  where 
he  died  A.  D.  725.  The  great  and  learned  Feargal, 
commonly  called  Virgilius,  was  also  a  distinguished 
Irish  missionarv,  who  arrived  in  France  A.  D.  743. 
King  Pepin  became  greatly  attached  to  him  and 
recommended  him  to  Otho,  Duke  of  Bavaria,  on  whose 
recommendation  he  was  appointed  Abbot  of  Saltzburg, 
where,  after  a  zealous  and  rather  stormy  life,  he  died, 
A.  D.  785. 

These  are  but  a  few  of  the  great  Irish  monks  who  went 
forth,  like  the  Apostles,  preaching  the  Gospel  and 
spreading  the  seed  of  Christianity  in  their  path. 
While  the  mother  hive  was  pouring  forth  swarms  of 
missionaries  over  Europe,  those  who  remained  behind 
were  building  churches  and  monasteries,  establishing 
free  schools,  to  which  the  youth  from  England,  Scotland, 
and  France  Hocked  for  their  education,  tilling  the 
soil,  and  bringing  the  waste  lands  into  cultivation,  and 
lastly,  but  not  least,  in  copying  the  Gospel,  committing 


,    ^-     -  THE  ISLAND  OF  SAlNTSv   -  40 

the  aroluyns  of  the  country  to  liistory,  and  in  elaborat- 
ing and  ri'uiscribing  those  wonderful  liistorical  records, 
many  of  which  are  preserved  to  the  present  day. 
Some  idea  may  be  formed  of  the  leai-ned  state  of 
Ireland  during  this  period,  and  the  reputation  her 
schools  had  attained,  when  we  state  that  over  eight  hun- 
dred students  attendei  Lismore  universities;  abont  ihe 
same  number  were  educated  at  E-athlin,  while  lil'teen 
hundred  were  educated  at  Devenish;  and  Bangor, 
Clonard,  Armadown,  and  Armagh  fed,  clothed,  and 
educated  over  three  thousand  students  each,  and  of 
these  a  large  number  were  entertained  and  educated 
free.  . 

The  great  Universities  of  Paris  and  Pavia  were 
founded  by  two  Irish  monks,  namely,  Clement  and 
Albin,  during  the  reign  of  Charlemagne.  Within  this 
period  it  has  been  calculated  that  the  Irish  monks  es- 
tablished in  England  twelve  monasteries;  in  Scotland, 
thirteen;  in  Belgium,  nine;  in  France,  nineteen;  in 
Alsace,  ten;  in  Lorraine,  seven;  in  Bavaria,  sixteen; 
in  Italy,  six;  in  Switzerland  and  Thuringia,  fifteen. 
In  the  same  period,  or  since  the  introduction  of  Chris- 
tianity down  to  the  Danish  invasion,  Ireland  produced 
more  than  five  hundred  saints,  of  whom  forty-four  were 
venerated  in  Enghmd;  forty-five  in  France,  of  whom 
six  were  martyrs;  thirty  in  Belgium;  one  hundred  and 
fifty  in  Germany,  of  whom  thirty-six  were  martyrs; 
thirteen  in  Italy;  and  eight  in  Iceland  and  JNoi  wav,  all 
of  whom  were  martyred,  besides  several  in  Scotland 
and  elsewhere.  So  renowned  had  the  schools  of 
Ireland  become  that  tlie  Venerable  Bede  tells  us  that 
*Mn  the  time  of  Finian  and  Colman  (seventh  century) 
many  nobles  and  others  of  the  English  nation  were  liv- 
ing.in  Ireland,  whither  they  had  gone  either  to  culti- 
vate the  sacred  studies,  or  to  lead  more  chaste  lives. 


50 


IKELAXD,  PAST  A^'D  PRESE^'T. 


Some  became  monks,  and  others  merely  attended  the 
monasteries  to  hear  the  lectures  of  the  professors.  But 
all  were  cheerfully  received  by  the  Irish,  who  supjilied 
them  gratis  with  books  and  teachers." 

Among  the  distinguished  foreigners  educated  in 
Ireland  were  Eanfrid,  King  of  Bernicia;  Oswald  and 
Alcfrid,  Kings  of  North umbria;  Dagobert,  King  of 
Austrasia,  and  King  Alfred  of  England.  Camden,  the 
English  historian,  tells  us  that  ''anciently  the  Saxons 
tlocked  to  Ireland  as  a  mart  of  sacred  learnins:,''  and 
the  fact  is  frequently  mentioned  in  the  lives  of  the 
eminent  men  among  them,  of  wiiom  it  is  related  that, 

"With  love  of  Icarnin?  and  example  fiff^d. 
To  Ireland,  famed  for  wisdom,  they  retired. ' 

THE  DANISH  IXVASIOX. 

Hugh  VI.  ascended  the  throne  of  Ireland  A.  D.  797. 
At  this  period  the  Clmrch  was  fully  established  in  the 
country.  There  were  bishops  and  pastors  everywhere; 
every  section  had  its  church,  and  every  church  its 
pastor.  It  is  possible  that  a  diocese  was  then  incon- 
siderable, for  while  in  Ireland  to  day  there  are  only 
twenty-eight  bishops,  there  were  in  the  time  of  St. 
Patrick  more  than  three  hundred  bishops  in  the  island. 
The  Church  liad  attained  its  brightest  eminence  at  this 
I>eriod,  for  with  the  incursion  of  the  barbarians,  as  the 
Danes  were  designated,  A.  D.  795,  a  reign  of  blood, 
rapine,  and  carnage  ensued.  Towns,  churches,  .and 
monasteries  were  burned  without  remorse,  the  clergy 
and  people  were  massacred  or  carried  away  as  slaves, 
and  terror  and  devastation  overspread  the  land. 

The  Danes  were  natives  of  !Norway  and  Denmark. 
They  were  Pagans,  lierce  and  warlike  in  battle,  for 
they  believed  that  their  future  happiness  depended 


THE  DANISH  IXVASIOX. 


51 


ou  tlieir  bravery  and  the  number  they  killed  in  battle. 
They  were  armed  with  a  battle-axe,  a  two-edged  sword, 
bow  and  javelin,  and  a  large  leathern  shield.  They 
were,  properly  speaking,  a  colony  of  Goths,  and  called 
Danes  after  a  celebrated  chief  named  Dan,  son  of 
Hamel,  whom  they  had  chosen  for  their  monarch. 
Denmark  and  'Norway  were  allied  together  by  their 
geographical  position  and  by  the  claims  of  common 
kindred,  and  as  their  poj)ulation  increased  they  made 
inroads  on  Gaul  and  the  coasts  of  Britain.  They  were 
great  navigators  and  noted  pirates,  and  soon  swept  the 
neighboring  coasts  with  their  formidable  fleets  led  on 
by  their  daring  Vikings,  or  Sea  Kings,  as  they  were 
justly  called.  Such  was  the  enemy  that  ravaged  the 
coasts  of  Europe  in  the  ninth  and  tenth  centuries,  and 
checked  the  X)rogress  of  Charlemagne  in  the  conquest 
of  the  Saxons.  In  France  tliev  were  called  Xormans, 
w^hich  signifies  IN'orth-men,  or  more  properly  from  the 
fact  that  they  took  possession  of  that  part  of  the 
country  called  Xormandy,  which  some  writers  hold 
was  named  after  them.  In  England  they  were  called 
Ostmans,  that  is,  people  from  the  East,  while  in  Ireland 
they  were  called  in    the  language  of  the  country 

Lochlaminigs,"  which  signifies  "powerful  at  sea." 
So  that  in  most  histories  we  find  them  desii^nated  bv 
different  names,  including  those  of  Danes,  Norwegians, 
and  Normans. 

According  to  Irish  annals  the  Danes  first  appeared 
on  the  Irish  coast  in  795.  They  laid  waste  the  country 
bordering  the  sea  in  Albania,  and  pillaged  the  isle  of 
Rachlin  in  the  County  Antrim,  and  carried  off  several 
of  the  inliabitants  as  captives.  In  798  they  made 
another  raid  on  the  coasts  of  the  north  of  Ireland  and 
the  Hebrides.  Their  object  at  first  was  plunder,  but 
being  pleased  with  the  fertility  of  the  country  and  the 


52  IRELAND,  PAST  A>D  FKESTJUT, 

rich  spoils  of  its  monasteries,  they  resolved  to  conqner 
it.  They  landed  on  the  coast  of  Munster.  having  with 
them  a  chosen  body  of  troops  and  a  tieer  of  fiiry  vessels. 
They  commenced  pillaging  and  massacring  on  all  sides, 
laying  waste  the  province.  Airtre,  Kingof  Mnnster.gave 
them  battle  and  drove  them  back  to  their  vessels  with 
great  slaughter.  About  the  same  time  they  pillaged 
lona  and  massacred  the  monks  in  the  abbev.  Soon 

m 

after  this,  A.  B.  812,  another  Danish  fleet  landed  troops 
on  the  coasts  of  Monster,  but  were  again  defeated  with 
great  loss  by  Feidlime,  successor  to  King  Airtre.  At 
the  same  time  another  fleet  landed  trooi)s  on  the 
eastern  coasts.  They  advanced  into  the  country,  spread- 
ing terror  and  dismay  on  all  sides.  Tbey  ravaged  the 
celebrated  Abbey  of  Bangor  and  killed  the  abbot  with 
nine  hundred  monks.  Another  body  landed  at  Wexford 
and  laid  waste  the  country  before  them,  burned  churches 
and  monasteries,  and  massacred  their  inhabitants. 
The  troops  of  Ossory  gave  them  battle  and  defeated 
them  with  great  loss,  the  Danes  leaving  seven  hundred 
dead  on  the  field.  Not  disheartenedbydeieats,  but  rather 
stimulated  by  the  richness  of  the  spoils  in  prospect, 
they  landed  a  larsre  force  in  Limerick,  which  commenced 
its  career  of  rapine  and  masc^acre.  They  were  again 
defeated  and  comi>elled  to  take  to  their  ships  for 
safety.  They  seemed  discouraged  by  their  repeated 
defeats,  but  in  reality  were  only  preparing  to  make  a 
more  resolute  and  combined  attack  on  Scotia,  as  their 
chroniclers  call  Ireland,  a  name  by  which  the  country 
was  best  known  in  the  ninth  century. 

About  the  year  818  Tureesms  landed  with  a  formida- 
ble  fleet  in  the  north  of  Ireland.  He  had  the  reputation 
of  being  a  great  warrior,  but  was  a  cruel,  vindictive 
tyrant.  On  the  news  of  his  arrival,  all  the  Danes  who 
had  been  foolishly  allowed  to  settle  in  the  country 


THE  DANISH  INVASION 


53 


joined  him.  Turgesiiis  commenced  opeiations  by  issu- 
ing orders  to  spare  neither  age  nor  sex.  As  there  were 
no  fortifications  in  the  country,  the  Danes  commenced 
the  system  of  throwing  up  forts  to  protect  ilieni 
wherever  the\  encamped  for  any  time,  or  found  it 
necessary  to  leave  a  guard,  so  that  in  the  course  of 
time  the  countrv  became  covered  with  forts,  the  remains 
of  which  still  exist. 

Turgesius  stationed  a  part  of  his  fleet  in  Longh 
Neagb,  another  in  Lough  Rea,  and  the  rest  in  front  of 
Limerick.  From  these  fleets  and  the  raths  or  garri- 
sons established  near  them  Turgesius  poured  forth  liis 
troops  to  deluge  in  blood  tlie  country.  The  tyrant's 
orders  were  too  faithfully  executed.  The  church  and 
abbey  of  Armagh  were  plundered  three  times  in  one 
month,  and  the  monks  and  the  seven  thousand  students 
w^iich  it  contained  were  either  assassinated  or  j)ut  to 
flight.  On  all  sides,  monasteries  and  churches  were 
ruthlessly  plundered,  and  their  inmates  butchered. 
While  Turgesius  was  devastating  the  country,  L'eland 
was  distracted  and  divided  by  internecine  wars  and 
feuds  between  lier  princes  and  rulers. 

Hugh,  the  Monarch  o^  L'eland,  instead  of  concentrat- 
ing his  forces  against  the  Danes,  waged  war  on  the 
people  of  Leinster.  In  this  reign  the  wrath  of  God 
seemed  to  visit  the  country:  over  a  thousand  persons 
w^ere  killed  by  lightni-ng,  the  sea  deluged  a  large  section 
of  the  country,  and  the  island  of  Inisfidlie  was  rent  in 
three  parts  by  an  earthquake. 

Hugh,  who  died  in  819,  was  succeeded  by  King 
Conquovar,  or  Connor,  who  felt  more  keenly  than  his 
predecessor  the  misfortunes  of  the  country.  He  col- 
lected all  his  forces  to  oppose  the  Danes,  who  now 
began  to  establish  themselves  permanenll)'  in  the 
country,  and  gave  them  battle  at  Tailton,  where  they 


54 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


were  signally  defeated.  Tlie  Danes  were  able  to  protect 
themselves  within  their  forts  until  thev  received  rein- 
forcements  from  their  own  country.  In  a  fierce  battle 
with  the  inhabitants  of  Leinster  soon  afterwards,  the 
*  Danes  were  again  victorious. 

Conquovar  made  desperate  efforts  to  unite  the  warring 
Irish  cliiefs  against  the  invaders,  but  failed,  and  it  is 
said  that  he  died  of  a  broken  heart.  He  was  succeeded 
by  Niall,  son  of  Hugh  lY.,  who  made  efforts  to  expel 
the  Danes.  In  835,  reinforcements  having  arrived  from 
Norway,  the  Danes  laid  waste  the  j^rovince  of  Con- 
nanght,  with  part  of  Meatli  and  Leinster.  The}'  also 
devastated  a  great  part  of  Ulster,  demolislied  the 
churches,  and  treated  the  Christians  with  all  kinds  of 
savnge  brutality.  They  again  seized  on  Armagh,  and 
burned  the  Monasteries  of  Inis  Keattrach,  Clon-Mac- 
Koise,  Tirdi glass,  and  several  others. 

The  year  840  was  remarkable  for  the  destruction  of 
the  Picts  in  Scotland.  After  a  long  war  the  Scots  de- 
feated them  and  their  King,  Kenneth,  and  incorporated 
their  territory  with  their  own,  thus  establishing  the 
Kingdom  oC  Scotland. 

While  the  Normans  were  pouring  hordes  of  their 
daring  adventurers  into  Ireland,  the  Irisli  princes  were 
CLt  war  with  each  other.  We  find  the  King  of  Cashel 
making  war  on  some  of  his  refractory  subjects,  and  the 
monarcii  more  bent  on  chastising  refractory  princes  than 
on  expelling  the  Danes.  However,  after  having  crushed 
out  several  revolts,  he  defeated  the  Danes  in  numerous 
engagements.  Niall,  having  defeated  the  Danes  in  the 
territory  of  Tirconnel,  was  on  his  return  home,  when 
unfortunately  he  was  drowned  in  crossing  the  river  at 
Callan,  County  Kilkenny.  The  village  was  since  called 
Callan,  after  Niall' s  additional  name  of  ''Caiile,"  and 
the  river  is  still  known  as  the  King's  River. 


THE  DANISH  INVASION. 


55 


After  tlie  death  of  Niall-Caille,  the  throne  of  Ireland 
remained  vacant  for  some  time,  and  the  followers  of 
Turgesius  declared  him  king.  Troops  were  sent  from 
Norway  to  sustain  his  claims.  This  exasperated  the 
Irish  princes  and  chiefs  so  greatly  that  for  a  time  they 
forgot  their  private  quarrels  and  made  common  cause 
against  the  enemy,  and  defeated  the  Danes  in  several 
engagements.  At  Ardbracan,  in  Meath,  they  were  de- 
feated by  the  tribe  of  the  Dailgais,  The  Kings  of 
Cashel  and  Leinster  joined  their  forces  and  defeated 
them  at  Scia-Naght,  slaying  Tomair,  their  chief  and 
heir  to  the  crown  of  Denmark,  and  twelve  hundred  men. 
They  were  again  defeated  at  Cashel  and  Limerick,  as 
also  in  several  engagements  in  Meath  and  West  Meath. 

The  Danes  w^ere  now  desperate,  and  should  soon  have 
been  compelled  to  leave  the  island  if  only  followed  up 
in  the  same  vigorous  manner,  but  the  Irish  chiefs  had 
their  own  quarrels  to  settle,  and  new  reinforcements 
pouring  in  from  Norway,  Turgesius  was  again  able  to 
act  on  the  offensive,  and  soon  made  himself  master  of 
Dublin  and  established  a  strong  colony  of  Danes  around 
it  in  the  territory  of  Fingal.  He  became  so  formidable 
that  he  actually  assumed  supreme  power,  and  com- 
menced to  regulate  the  affairs  of  both  Church  and  State. 
He  was  fast  reducing  the  country  to  a  state  of  servitude 
and  ignorance,  for  he  had  placed  his  soldiers  to  garri- 
son each  village  or  house,  had  burnt  and  destroyed 
the  monasteries  and  colleges  with  their  stores  of  leari-- 
ing,  and  was  fast  driving  the  country  into  a  state  of 
barbarism,  when  his  cruel  reign  was  brought  to  a  bloody 
end.  .  The  tyrant  fell  in  love  with  Melcha,  daughter  of 
Malachi,  Prince  of  Meath.  He  asked  her  from  her  father. 
Had  he  refused  the  barbarian,  it  would  be  certain  de. 
struction  to  himself  and  family;  so  he  formed  a  scheme 
to  get  rid  of  the  oppressor,  and  possibly  of  the  invaders. 


56 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


He  i)retended  to  accept  liis  offer,  only  stipulating  that 
fifteen'  young  ladies  should  accompany  her  on  her 
marriage-day.  This  being  agreed  upon,  Malachi  se- 
lected fit  teen  beardless  youths,  who  were  dressed  in 
female  attire,  and  secretly  armed.  On  the  festival 
night  Turgesius  with  some  of  his  officers  indulged  freely 
in  wine,  when  the  youths,  throwing  off  their  disguise, 
seized  and  bound  him,  and  then  threw  oj)en  the  gates 
to  Malachi  and  his  followers,  who  burst  in,  killing  all 
who  opposed  them.  Turgesius  himself  w^as  bound  and 
flung  into  L(jugh  Yair,  where  he  perished.  A  general 
rising  of  the  Irish  and  a  wholesale  massacre  of  the 
Danes  followed.  The  latter,  having  lost  their  daring 
leader,  made  a  small  show  of  resistance,  and  most  of 
them  fled  from  the  island. 

In  their  gratitude  to  Malachi  for  their  deliverance 
from  the  Danes,  the  people  declared  him  their  monarch. 
Malachi  proved  to  be  a  wise  and  valiant  prince,  and  de- 
feated the  Danes  in  several  engagements.  He  restored 
peace  and  tranquillity  to  the  nation,  religion  iigain 
flourished,  the  churches  and  monasteries  were  again 
rebuilt,  and  the  princes  and  people  restored  to  their 
inheritance.  He  did  not  suffer  much  from  new  inva- 
sions, for  the  adventurers  from  Denmark  and  Norway 
quarreled  among  themselves,  and  the  consequence  was 
that  as  long  as  they  remained  divided  they  ceased  to  be 
formidable  to  any  foreign  power. 

The  expelled  Normans,  unable  to  regain  their  hold  by 
force  of  arms,  had  recourse  to  diplomacy.  The  brothers 
..of  Turgesius  traded  with  the  Irish,  and  their  friends 
/largely  colonized  Waterford,  Limerick,  and  Dublin 
under  the  pretense  of  trade.  In  time  they  became  for- 
midable, and  even  killed  the  King  of  Munster  in  a 
skirmish.  Malachi,  desiring  to  visit  Rome  on  a  pious 
pilgrimage,  sent  ambassadors  and  presents  to  the  court 


THE  DANISH  INVASION. 


57 


of  Charles  the  Bald,  of  France,  to  inform  him  of  his 
victories  over  the  Danes,  as  well  as  to  apprise  him  of 
his  desire  to  pass  through  France  on  his  way  to  Rome. 
The  King  of  France  received  the  ambassadors  with  dis- 
tinction, and  favored  the  Irish  so  much  that  he  had 
many  saintly  and  learned  men  of  that  nation  around 
him. 

Notwithstanding  the  troubles  which  disturbed  Mala- 
chi's  reign,  this  pious  prince  governed  his  subjects  with 
equity  and  justice.  He  formed  alliances  with  foreign 
princes,  and  gained  several  victories  over  the  enemies 
of  his  country,  but  his  weakness  in  having  given  a  foot- 
ing to  the  Danes  in  the  seaport  towns  of  the  island, 
after  the  cruelties  they  had  perpetrated,  lessens  con- 
siderably the  opinion  we  should  entertain  of  his  wisdom 
and  judgment.  Malachi  died  A..D.  863,  much  regretted, 
and  was  interred  with  much  pomp  at  Clon-Miic-Noise. 

Hugh  VII.,  son  of  Niall-Caille,  who  was  drowned 
at  Callan,  succeeded  Malachi.  He  was  married  to  a 
daughter  of  Kenneth,  King  of  Scotland.  During  the 
I'eign  of  this  monarch  and  that  of  his  successor,  Flann, 
son  of  Malachi,  the  Danes  again  became  formidable, 
and  burned  several  monasteries.  They  might  have 
fully  regained  their  power  had  not  quarrels  broken 
out  among  themselves.  In  892  Godfrey,  son  of  Ivor, 
the  Danish  prince,  was  assassinated  in  Dublin  by  the 
intrigues  of  his  brother  Sitrick,  which  conflict  divided 
the  Danes  into  two  factions.  Sitrick  did  not  long- 
survive  his  fratricide,  for  he  w^as  killed  by  his  own 
people. 

f  The  reign  of  Flann,  was  on  the  whole  rather  pros- 
perous for  Ireland,  for,  although  the  Danes  succceeded 
in  plundering  Clonard,  Armagh,  Cork,  and  Lismore, 
they  were  too  much  divided  among  themselves  to  make 
general  war  on  the  Irish;  besides,  at  this  time,  Harold, 


58 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


wlio  ruled  Norway,  had  made  war  against  the  Sea 
Kings,  and  attacking  tliem  in  their  strongholds,  pur- 
sued them  with  so  much  vigor  that  these  pirates  were 
unable  to  give  much  attention  to  foreign  expeditions.  ^ 

During  this  reign  also  Alfred  the  Great  ruled  in  Eng- 
land, and  brought  from  Ireland  monks  for  his  monas- 
teries and  learned  men  as  professors  in  the  English 
universities. 

The  throne  of  Munster  was  occupied  by  Cormac  Mac- 
Cullenan,  Bishop  of  Cashel,  who  was  crowned  king 
A.  D.  900.  He  compiled  the  "  Saltair  of  Cashel."  He 
allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  into  a  foolish  war  with  the 
Monarch  Flann,  and  marched  into  Leinster,  where  he 
and  six  thousand  of  his  followers  were  slain  in  a  battle 
fought  at  a  place  called  Beallach-Mugna,  in  the  year 
907.  He  was  both  a  spiritual  and  a  temporal  prince. 
Olcoliar,  who  died  in  851,  and  Cenfoelad,  who  died  in 
872,  were  at  the  same  time  Kings  of  Cashel  and  Bishops 
of  Emly. 

The  Danes,  having  again  regained  their  power  in 
Dublin,  threatened  the  conquest  of  all  Ireland.  Tlieir 
most  powerful  enemies  were  the  Kings  of  Munster,  who 
kept  up  a  continual  contlicfc  with  them.  Keallachan, 
King  of  Cashel,  greatly  signalized  himself  against  the 
Danes.  Sitrick,  chief  of  the  Danes,  offered  him  his 
sister  in  marriage,  and  also  to  conclude  an  alliance 
offensive  and  defensive.  Under  such  promises,  he  suc- 
ceeded in  getting  the  king  into  his  hands  as  a  prisoner. 
Kennede,  who  administered  the  government  during  the 
king's  absence,  sent  his  army  of  Munster  men  to  re- 
venge the  cowardly  trick.  They  were  under  command 
of  Donnogh  MacKeefe,  Prince  of  Fermoighe,  an  ex- 
perienced general.  At  the  same  time  Kennede  dis- 
patched a  fleet  under  command  of  the  Prince  of  Des- 
mond to  attack  the  Danish  ships.  Donnogh  followed 


THE  DAIS^ISII  INVASION.  69 

the  Danes  to  Dnndalk,  driving  tliem  from  Armngh. 
They  embarked  on  board  llieir  ships,  only  to  encounter 
the  Irish  fleet  under  Fionn,  Prince  of  Desmond,  and 
one  of  the  most  obstinate  encounters  on  record  took  a 
place. 

Faillihe-Fionn  closed  on  the  Danish  fleet,  and  desirous 
of  setting  his  troops  the  example,  he  leaped,  sword  in 
hand,  into  the  Danish  admiral's  ship,  in  which  was 
Sitrick,  his  brother  Tor,  and  Magnus,  and  Keallachan, 
King  of  Munster,  w^ho  was  tied  to  the  mast.  This  brave 
man  and  his  followers  made  dreadful  havoc  among  the 
enemy,  and  clearing  a  passage  to  his  king,  he  cut  his 
bonds  and  set  him  at  liberty,  but  he  was  slain  while 
doing  so.  Prince  Fiongall,  seeing  the  conflict  doubtful, 
rushed  on  Sitrick,  and  seizing  him  by  the  body,  threw 
himself  into  the  sea,  where  both  perished.  Seagda  and 
Conall,  two  other  chiefs,  flred  by  this  example,  seized 
on  Tor  and  Magnus,  and  in  like  manner  jumped  into 
the  sea  with  them.  The  Danes,  having  lost  their  com- 
manders, soon  gave  w^ay  and  their  fleet  was  routed  with 
great  slaughter.  Keallachan  returned  with  the  army 
to  Munster  and  pursued  the  Danes  with  implacable 
hostility. 

Godfrid,  King  of  the  Ostmans  of  Dublin,  pillaged 
Armagh  in  921,  but  was  defeated  near  Limerick  in  an 
expedition  to  support  the  Danes  of  Munster.  About 
this  time  the  Danes  made  a  raid  on  Roscrea,  in  Tippe- 
rary,  during  the  celebrated  fair  which  was  held  there 
on  the  feast  of  Sts.  Peter  and  Paul,  but  were  routed 
with  a  loss  of  four  thousand  men  and  their  chief, 
Oilflnn. 

We  cannot  devote  space  in  this  resume  of  Irish  his- 
tory to  narrate  the  innumerable  battles  which  took 
place  between  the  Irish  and  the  Danes.  About  the 
year  950  the  Danes  began  to  embrace  the  Christian  re- 


60 


IRELAND,  TAST  AND  PRESENT. 


ligion  and  to  intermarry  with  the  natives,  whicli  tended 
greatly  to  soften  their  tierce  natures. 

During  the  reign  of  Malachi  II.,  who  succeeded  liis 
father  A.  D.  980,  the  Danes  again  became  formidable. 
They  were  defeated  by  the  monarch  at  Tara,  w^here  five 
thousand  of  their  number,  including  their  chiefs,  were 
slain.  He  defeated  the  Danes  who  held  the  territory 
of  Feangal,  and  captured  the  city  of  Dublin,  releasing 
several  Irishmen  held  jnisoners  there. 

Brian,  King  of  Munster,  was  also  carrying  on  a  fierce 
warfare  against  the  enemy,  and  pursued  them  as  far  as 
Dublin,  after  killing  six  thousand  of  them  in  one 
engagement. 

The  Danes  were  in  alliance  with  the  Prince  of  Leinster, 
and  owing  to  this  fact,  and  the  weakness  of  Malachi, 
there  was  danger  of  their  conquering  the  country. 
The  princes  of  Munster  and  Connaught,  fearing  such  a 
result,  decided  that  the  sceptre  as  Ardrigh  should  be 
transferred  to  the  warlike  Brian,  King  of  Munster, 
named  Boiroimhe,  son  of  Kennede,  and  grandson  of 
Lorcan,  of  the  race  of  Heber  Fionn,  who  having  received 
the  abdication  of  Malachi  at  Athlone,  A.  D.  1002,  was 
declared  monarch  of  all  Ireland.  Brian,  having  received 
the  fealty  of  O'Connor,  King  of  Connaught,  Hugh. 
O'Neill,  King  of  Ulster,  and  other  princes  and  chiefs, 
repaired  to  Tara,  where  lie  was  solemnly  crowned. 

In  ills  reign  surnames  were  adopted  in  Ireland,  and 
O  and  Mac  were  as  honorable  prefixes  to  show  that 
the  persons  using  them  were  descendants  of  some 
faniil  v. 

After  the  assembly  at  Tara  had  dissolved.  Brian  re- 
tired to  Kincora,  near  Killaloe,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Shannon,  where  he  held  court.  The  most  remarkable 
event  in  Brian's  life  was  the  battle  of  Clontarf,  which 
originated  as  follows  :   Maelmurra,  Prince  of  Lainster, 


THE  DANISH  INVASIOJf. 


Gl 


was  taunted  at  a  game  of  cliess  by  MiirroagL,  Brian's 
eldest  son.  Maelnmrra  vowed  vengeance,  and  in  order 
to  gratify  liis  revenge,  opened  negotiations  with  the 
Danes,  and  sending  his  agents  to  England,  Denmark, 
and  the  Isle  of  Man,  also  to  the  Orkneys,  the  Hebrides, 
and  the  coasts  of  Scotland,  he  entered  into  an  allinnce 
with  them,  w^hile,  on  the  other  hand,  thej^  were  only 
too  glad  of  so  favorable  a  chance  to  conquer  the  countr}-. 
King  Brian,  justly  alarmed  at  the  vast  preparations 
making  by  Maelnmrra  and  his  Danish  allies,  set  to 
work  with  his  usual  energ}^  and  being  nobly  seconded 
by  Malachi,  the  dethroned  monarch,  the  King  of  Con- 
naught,  and  by  nearly  all  the  other  Irish  princes,  the 
aged  monarch,  who  was  eighty-eight  years  of  age,  found 
himself  at  the  head  of  an  army  of  about  twenty  thou- 
sand men.  All  things  being  ready,  the}^  commenced 
their  march  for  Dublin,  where  at  a  place  called  Clontarf, 
a  short  distance  from  the  city,  the  Leinster  troops  and 
their  Danish  allies,  numbering  about  the  same  as  Brian's 
army,  awaited  them.  Fourteen  hundred  of  the  Danes 
were  in  chain  armor,  and  were  under  command  of  such 
brave  warriors  as  Anrud,  Bradiir,  Sigur,  and  Canuteson. 
The  Irish  forces  were  led  by  Murrough  and  the  Princes 
of  Miinster,  Meath,  and  Con  naught.  This  battle,  which 
took  place  on  Good  Frida}^,  23d  of  April,  1014,  thongh 
desperate  and  sanguinar}^  was  glorious  to  the  Irish, 
who  gained  a  complete  victory  over  the  enemy.  The 
loss  on  both  sides  was  verv  crreat.  The  enemv  lost 
about  twelve  thousand  men,  including  Maelmurra,  King 
of  Leinster,  with  two  sons  of  the  King  of  Denmai  k,  and 
several  of  their  most  noted  chiefs.  The  Irish  lost  about 
seven  thousand,  including  the  monarch  himself,  wlio 
was  killed  in  his  tent  by  a  fugitive  Dane ;  his  son  Mur- 
rough, wlio  commanded  the  army;  and  his  grandson, 
and  several  chiefs  and  princes.    This  celebrated  battle 


62 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


cruslied  the  power  of  the  Danes,  destroyed  their  hope 
of  conquest,  and  gave  prestige  to  the  arms  of  Ireland 
,  throughout  Europe. 

After  the  battle  of  Clontarf,  Malachi,  who  had  been 
dethroned  twelve  years  before,  ascended  the  throne  of 
Ireland,  and  Donnough  O'Brien,  Prince  of  Thomoud, 
who  led  back  the  Munster  troops  from  Clontarf,  was 
declared  King  of  Munster. 

The  Danes  never  recovered  from  the  effects  of  Clon- 
tarf, and  though  they  made  feeble  efforts  to  regain 
their  ascendenc}',  they  were  defeated  in  several  engage- 
ments by  Prince  Malachi  and  his  successors,  "until  in 
the  reign  of  Tliurlough  I..  A.  D.  1072,  tliey  finally 
acknowledged  allegiance  to  the  Monarch  of  Ii'eland." 


THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 


63 


CHAPTER  lY. 

THE  ANGLO  NORMAN  INVASION. 

From  ilie  Landing  of  the  Saxon  Invaders  down  to  tlie 
Protestant  Reformation — Art  IlacMur rough — How 
Ireland  loas  Betrayed — Disunion  and  Jealousy  the 
Ruin  of  Ireland. 

Religion  in  Ireland,  which  had  fallen  into  many 
abuses  during  the  long  wars  with  the  Danes,  was  again 
purified,  and  many  noble  churches  and  monasteries 
were  built,  such  as  the  Church  of  Kildare,  in  1060; 
St.  Patrick's,  Dublin,  in  1070;  Holy  Cross  Abbey,  in 
1080;  and  the  Cathedrals  of  Cork,  Limerick,  and 
Waterford,  about  the  same  time.  Ireland  was  freed 
from  the  barbarous  inroads  of  the  Danes,  and  might 
have  been  happy  and  prosperous,  only  for  the  ambi- 
tious jealousies  of  her  kings  and  jninces,  who  were  con- 
tinually at  war  with  each  other,  thus  harassing  the 
country  and  keeping  the  people  divided  into  warring 
factions.  The  wars  between  the  various  claimants  to 
the  throne  of  Ireland  paved  the  way  for  the  English 
invasion  under  Henrv  II. 

In  the  year  1153  Devorgil],  wife  of  O'Rourke,  Prince 
of  Breffny,  eloped  with  Dermod  MacMurrough,  King 
of  Leinster,  an  act  which  has  entailed  almost  as  much 
misery  on  Ireland  as  the  eating  of  the  forbidden  fruit 
by  Mother  Eve  has  on  the  human  race.  In  the  year 
1154  Henry  II.  ascended  the  throne  of  England,  ;\nd 


C4 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


in  the  same  year  Nicholas  Breakspeare,  an  English- 
maTi,  ^vas  elected  Pope.  MacMurrough  had  drawn 
upon  himself  the  vengeance  of  Roderick,  Monarch  of 
Ireland,  and  other  princes,  for  his  dastardly  condnct 
in  seducing  the  wife  of  the  Prince  of  Brefni*  After 
being  expelled  the  renegade  made  his  way  to  England, 
and  sought  the  assistance  of  Henry  to  reinstate  him, 
promising  him  that  he  would  become  tributary  to  him 
and  aid  him  in  conquering  the  counti'3%  on  condition 
that  he  would  aid  him  in  becoming  Monarch  of  Irehmd. 
Though  Henr}^  was  pleased  wiih  the  scheme,  he  was 
not  then  in  a  x)osition  to  do  so,  but  he  encouraged  some 
adventurous  noblemen  to  undertake  the  daring  enter. 
])rise,  assuring  them  of  his  countenance  and  suppoit. 

On  the  11th  of  May,  1169,  Robert  Fitzstephen  lauded 
near  Wexford  with  thirty  knights,^sixty  men  in  armor, 
and  three  hundred  men.  Next  day  Maurice  de  Pen- 
dergast  joined  him  with  about  one  hundred  men. 
Donald,  son  of  Dermod,  joined  them  with  over  five 
hundred  followers:  these  were  reinforced  bv  more  of 
the  friends  of  the  treacherous  MacMurrough.  Wex- 
ford at  once  surrendered  to  them,  and  the  garrison, 
wiiich  was  friendly  to  Dermod,  increased  the  army  of 
the  invaders. 

The  progress  of  Dermod  and  his  allies  began  to  alarm 
the  Monarch  Roderick,  who  effected  a  treaty  with  Mac- 
Murrough, recognizing  him  as  King  of  Leinster,  on 
condition  that  he  would  dismiss  his  Anglo-Norman  sup- 
porters. The  faithless  MacMurrough  proved  his  trea- 
chery, for  after  signing  the  treaty,  he  encouraged  the 
invaders,  and  the  same  year  he  w^elcomed  to  his 
standard  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  with  ten  knights,  thirty 
esquires,  and  one  hundred  footmen,  and  Raymond  Lt> 
Gros,  with  about  one  hundred  followers.  In  fact,  the 
perjured  MacMurrough  had  only  lulled  the  fears  of 


THE  Al^GLO-NOPwMAN  IlSrVASION.  65 

Roderick  the  better  to  enable  him  to  bring  over  liis 
allies,  and  to  organize  a  formidable  army.  Waterford 
was  the  next  place  that  fell  into  the  invaders'  hands. 
Here  they  showed  that  even  then  the  Saxon  enemy  was 
not  ignorant  of  the  resources  of  civilization,  for  they 
tortured  twenty  of  the  inhabitants,  breaking  their 
limbs,  and  flung  them  into  the  sea,  as  an  example  to 
the  living  to  conduct  themselves  in  a  law-abiding 
manner. 

In  August,  1170,  Richard  de  Clare,  Earl  of  Pembroke, 
surnamed  Strongbow,  landed  with  over  twelve  hundred 
follow^ers,  and  assumed  the  leadership.  He  espoused 
Eva,  daughter  of  the  recreant  Leinster  King,  and  then, 
having  mustered  his  forces,  which  consisted  of  about 
ten  thousand  Leinster  troops,  and  his  foreign  allies, 
numbering  about  two  thousand  more,  he  marched  on 
Dublin  and  laid  siege  to  it.  The  inhabitants  made  a 
gallant  resistance,  but  were  obliged  to  surrender. 
While  the  conditions  w^re  drawing  up  the  enemy  burst 
into  the  city,  and  slew  many  of  the  inhabitants. 

The  invaders  had  now,  by  the  aid  of  the  King  of 
Leinster,  become  so  powerful  that  they  were  able  to 
bid  defiance  to  the  Ardrigli  himself.  Roderick,  though 
a  pious  and  brave  prince,  was  deficient  in  resolution  and 
military  genius,  and  in  this  respect  was  no  match  for 
Strongbow  and  the  brave  and  able  generals  who  served 
under  him.  In  May,  1171,  MacMurrough  died  miser- 
ably at  Dublin,  after  handing  over  his  country  to  the 
Saxon  invaders.  October  18th,  A.  D.  1171,  Henry  II., 
with  a  fleet  of  four  hundred  vessels  and  an  army  of 
live  hundred  knights  and  four  thousand  men  at-arms, 
landed  near  Waterford.  In  his  train  were  Hugh  de 
Lacy,  Theobald  Walters,  the  first  of  the  Butlers, 
William  Fitzaldelm,  ancestor  of  the  Burkes,  and  many 
others  whose  descendants   became   famous   in  the 


I 


66  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

country.  Henry  remained  seven  months  in  the  country, 
and  both  bv  arms  and  diplomacy  did  much  in  that 
time  to  strengthen  Engkind's  power  in  Irehind. 

In  the  first  place,  he  used  tlie  celebrated  bull  of  Pope 
Adrian,  which  many  writers  think  was  forged,  as  there 
is  no  cox)y  of  it  in  the  archives  at  Rome,  to  influence 
the  clergy,  too  many  of  whom  at  once  bowed  in  sub- 
mission to  what  they  looked  upon  as  the  bull  of  the 
Holy  See.  Though  this  bull  bears  date  1155,  it  was 
not  brought  forward  until  the  time  of  Henry's  landing 
in  Ireland.  Many  eminent  writers  maintain  that  it  was 
a  piece  of  gross  forger3\  Henry,  who  found  creatures 
too  ready  to  assassinate  St.  Thomas  of  Canterbury,  did 
not  want  for  venal  w^riters  to  give  publicity  to  a  docu- 
ment so  necessary  for  the  justification  of  his  invasion 
of  Ireland.  Even  if  the  bull  were  genuine,  which  we 
hold  it  was  not.  Pope  Adrian  had  no  more  right  to 
hand  over  Ireland  a  manacled  slave  to  England,  than 
he  had  to  bestow  it  on  France  or  Italy. 

Henry  made  good  use  of  his  time  in  Ireland  ;  Cork 
Waterford,  and  Limerick  surrendered  to  him.  He 
commenced  his  career  by  introducing  the  system  of 
confiscation,  and  generously  granted  Dublin  to  be  pos- 
sessed  by  the  surplus  population  of  Bristol,  and  all 
Ireland  w^as  duly  apportioned  to  his  followers.  Through 
motives  of  policy,  or  rather  on  the  principle  of  ''divide 
and  conquer,"  he  recognized  the  titles  and  claims  of 
ihe  MacMurroughs  of  Leinster,  the  O'Neills  of  Ulster, 
the  O'Briensof  Thomond,  the  OTonnors  of  Connaught, 
and  the  O'Malachys  of  Meatli. 

After  Henry's  return  to  England,  the  Irish  chiefs 
began  to  make  common  cause  against  the  enem}',  and 
various  engagements  iollowed  with  varying  success.  In 
the  year  1175  a  synod  was  held  at  Waterford,  at 
which  Adrian's  bull  was  made  public  for  the  hrst  time. 


THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 


67 


The  influence  of  this  document  must  have  been  all- 
povverf 111.  as  is  seen  from  tlie  fact  that  before  the  close 
of  the  year  Roderick  sent  his  Chancellor,  St.  Lawrence 
O'Toole,  at  the  head  of  an  embassy  to  Henr}^  II.  The 
result  was  the  treaty  of  Windsor,  in  which  the  Ardrigh 
yields  precedence  to  Henry,  while  retaining  both  the 
emblems  and  the  substance  of  his  former  power. 

The  Anglo-Norman  chiefs  now  began  to  take  a  promi- 
nent part  in  Irish  affairs.  John  de  Courcy  led  a  band 
of  adventurers  into  Ulster,  where  they  took  foothold. 
In  1184  Pope  Lucius  III.  released  Dublin  from  the 
authority  of  Armasrh,  thus  making  of  it  an  Anglo- 

1/  CD       J  <  J  ^  J 

Norman  see.  In  1185  John,  the  son  of  Henry,  landed 
in  Waterford  with  the  title  of  Lord  of  Ireland.  He 
spent  eight  months  in  the  countrj^  indulging  in  all 
kinds  of  excesses  and  dissipation,  and  heajping  insults 
on  the  native  princes. 

In  the  year  1186  Roderick  was  deposed  by  his  sons, 
and  retired  to  the  Monastery  of  Cong,  where  he  died, 
November  9th,  1198.  The  most  eminent  man  who 
flourished  in  Ireland  at  this  period — eminent  alike  for 
his  piety  and  his  patriotism — was  St.  Lawrence,  Arch- 
bishop  of  Dublin,  who  died  A.  D.  1180. 

After  the  death  of  Roderick,  Ireland  had  no  Ardrigh. 
The  provincial  kings  carried  on  the  struggle  against 
the  invaders,  but  as  they  were  too  often  at  variance 
among  themselves,  and  more  bent  on  avenging  i:)rivate 
quarrels  than  on  expelling  the  enemy,  their  efforts 
were  unsuccessful,  and  they  w^ere  finally  swept  away 
themselves.  Henry  II.  died  miserably  in  1189,  and  was 
succeeded  by  Richard  I.,  commonly  called  Cceur  de 
Lion.  The  Anglo-Normans  split  up  into  factions, 
and  the  Irish  might  have  regained  their  independence 
and  expelled  the  invaders,  but  for  the  destructive  wars 
raging  among  themselves,  and  chiefl}' among  the  princes 


68  IRELA^"D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

of  Connauglit,  who  were  fighting  for  the  shadow 
of  a  crown  while  the  enemy  had  seized  on  the  sub- 
stance. 

In  1199  John  succeeded  his  brother  Richard  on  the 
throne  of  England.  In  Irehind  his  authoiity  was 
scarcely  recognized.  Therefore,  in  the  year  1210,  he 
collected  seven  hundred  ships  and  crossed  over  with  a 
large  arm}^.  His  visit  only  lasted  a  few  months,  and 
accomplisiied  little  or  nothing.  He  did  not  march 
against  the  enemy,  but  mapped  out  the  counties  of 
Dnblin,  Meath,  Louth,  Kildare,  Carlow,  AVexford;  and 
Kilkenny  in  .Leinster,  and  Waterford,  Cork,  Kerry, 
Limerick,  and  Tipperar}',  in  Munster,  which  he  gra- 
ciously bestowed  on  liis^foUowers,  though  the  natives 
3till  held  j)ossession  of  them,  unless  near  the  garrisons. 
A.S  the  Danes  built  the  raths,  or  forts,  to  protect  them 
from  the  assaults  of  the  natives,  the  English  now  built 
strong  castles  for  their  protection,  the  ruins  of  which 
still  cover  the  island. 

In  the  year  1224  the  Dominicans  established  their 
first  house  in  Dublin,  under  the  patronage  of  the 
Anglo-Normans.  The  Fmnciscans,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  more  in  favor  with  the  natives,  and  founded  their 
first  house  in  Cork,  through  the  liberality  of  Florence 
MacCarthy,  in  1229. 

This  era  was  one  of  ceaseless  war  in  Ireland.  The 
invaders  were  at  open  strife  among  themselves,  and  the 
native  chiefs,  instead  of  taking  advantage  of  their  dis- 
sensions, onl}^  followed  their  example.  An  immense 
number  of  religious  houses  sprang  up  about  this  time. 
The  Anglo-Normans,  though  zealous  in  destroying  native 
monasteries,  were  munificent  in  their  endowments  of 
ones  founded  by  monks  of  their  own  race,  which 
they  could  well  afford  to  do  from  the  spoils  of  the 
others. 


THE  ANGLO  NORMAN  INVASION. 


69 


The  quarrels  between  the  Connaught  j)rinces  for  the 
right  of  succession,  as  also  between  the  O'Neills  and 
O'Donnells,  is  a  sad  comment  upon  the  manner  in 
which  the  English  gained  possession  of  Ireland.  In 
1259  O'  Neill  caused  himself  to  be  proclaimed  Monarch 
of  Ireland.  He  did  not  enjoy  the  barren  title  long,  for 
he  was  killed  the  following  year  in  battle. 

Tiie  Geraldines,  or  retainers  of  the  Fitzgeralds,  who 
had  settled  in  Munster,  were  continually  harassed  by 
O'Brien  of  Thomond  and  MacCarthy,  Prince  of 
Carbery. 

About  this  time,  according  to  Galleli,  the  Italians 
began  to  use  the  Irish  harp,  which  had  been  introduced 
into  that  country  about  1073. 

One  hundred  years  had  now  elapsed  since  the  inva- 
sion of  the  Anglo-Normans,  and  Ireland  was  still  un- 
conquered.  About  one- third  of  the  country  was  in  the 
hands  of  the  invaders,  whereas  all  the  rest  remained 
subject  to  the  native  princes  and  laws.  Richard  de 
Burgh,  the  ''Red  Eaii"  of  Ulster^  was  the  mostpower- 
erful  Anglo-Norman  lord  in  Ireland  about  this  time. 
In  Ulster  and  Connaught  his  sway  was  almost  supreme. 
After  humbling  the  house  of  O'Connor  in  Connaught, 
lie  successfully  made  war  on  the  O'Neills  and 
O'Donnells  in  Ulster,  but  was  finally  made  prisoner 
by  the  Fitzgeralds,  whose  possessions  in  Meath  he 
had  invaded.  He  was  soon  afterwards  set  at  liberty  by 
an  Anglo-Saxon  Parlament,  which  was  the  first  of  the 
kind  held  in  Ireland.  He  joined  the  army  of  Edward 
I.  against  the  Scotch,  and  fought  at  the  battle  of 
Falkirk,  where  Wallace  was  defeated,  and  after  a  life 
of  adventure  and  vicissitudes,  he  died  in  1826. 

When  Edward  II.  invaded  Scotland  in  1314  th#  Irish 
joined  the  standard  of  Robert  Bruce,  and  a  body  of 
archers  sent  by  Donald  O'Neill,  King  of  Ulster,  con- 


70 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


tributed  greatly  to  the  victory  of  Bannockburn. 
Chaucer,  in  alluding  to  it,  says: 

'To  Albion  Scots  wc  ne'er  would  yield. 
The  Irish  bowmen  won  the  field." 

The  result  of  this  glorious  vie  tor  v  in  Scotland  had  a 
salutary  effect  on  the  Irish  chiefs.  Donald  O'  Neill,  Prince 
of  Ulster,  organized  a  confederacy  of  native  chiefs,  and 
invited  Edward  Bruce,  brother  of  Kobert,  to  undertake 
the  deliverance  of  the  country. 

Bruce  accepted,  and  on  May  25th,  A.  D.  1315,  he 
landed  near  Glenarm,  in  Antrim,  with  six  thousand 
men,  aiid  was  immediately  joined  by  O'Neill.  All  Ulster, 
except  Carrickfergus.  soon  fell  into  their  hands,  and 
Bruce  was  elected  King  of  Ireland  and  crowned  at  Dun- 
dalk  amid  great  pomp  and  rejoicings.  The  King  of 
England  appealed  to  the  Pope  in  the  crisis.  Donald 
O'Neill  addressed  an  able  letter  to  the  Pope,  in  which 
he  grnpiiically  depicts  the  sad  state  of  Ireland  and  the 
outrages  practiced  on  them  by  the  English,  The  Eng- 
lish combined  all  their  forces  under  Birmingham  and 
Be  Burgh,  and  after  several  engagements,  in  most  of 
whicii  the  Irish  troops  were  successful,  they  finally  de- 
feated Bruce's  army  at  Faughard,  October  14th,  1318, 
where  that  gallant  but  ill-fated  prince  was  slain. 

The  termination  of  the  war  with  Bruce  did  not  restore 
peace  to  the  country.  Dissensions  multiplied  both 
among  natives  and  Anglo-Normans,  and  a  general  kind 
of  internecine  war  ensued.  For  instance,  at  Ardnocher, 
West  Meath,  A.  D  1328,  MacGeoghan  defeated  Lord 
Butler  with  a  loss  of  three  thousand  men,  and  in  the 
loilowing  year  the  Earl  of  Louth  was  slain  at  Bally- 
beagan,  with  a  number  of  his  follower.  In  1331  eighty 
persons  were  burned  in  a  church  in  Leinster,  and  two 
years  afterwards  two  priests  and  about  two  hundred 


THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 


71 


worsliipers  met  the  same  fate  iu  a  churcli  in  Thomond, 
while  in  1339  about  thirteen  hundred  natives  were  slain 
in  Kerry  by  Earl  Desmond. 

About  this  time  the  Saxons  and  Normans  amalga- 
mated, and  henceforth  were  known  under  the  common 
appellalion  of  Englishmen.  About  this  time  also  the 
Anglo-Norman  h^rds  in  Ireland  had  adopted  the  Irish 
language  and  habits,  and  many  of  them  had  become 
more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves.  In  order  to 
punish  them,  Edward  III,,  in  1341,  revoked  all  the 
privileges  and  grants  of  land  made  to  them  by  himself 
and  his  ancestors.  The  following  year  he  issued  another 
edict,  prohibiting  the  public  emj)]oyment  of  men  born 
in  Ireland,  or  who  even  married  there,  and  declared 
that  all  offices  of  state  should  be  filled  by  Englishmen. 
•  The  Anglo-Norman  lords  met  at  Kilkenny  and  remon- 
strated in  a  menacing  tone.  As  Edward  was  on  the  eve 
of  a  war  with  France,  he  found  it  prudent  to  yield  for 
a  time  at  least.  The  edicts  of  the  Kino-  onlv  influenced 
the  Irish-born  Normans  to  seek  the  fi'iendship  and 
alliance  of  the  natives.  The  bitter  spirit  of  hostility 
exhibited  by  the  English  to  the  Irish,  and  the  policy  of 
the  government  in  keeping  them  divided  the  easier  to 
conquer  them,  was  thus  inaugurated  by  Edward,  and 
has  been  steadily  observed  evendow^n  to  ourow*n  times. 
In  1357  it  was  declared  treason  to  intermarry  or  hold 
relations  of  fosterage  with  the  natives,  and  two  years 
later  it  was  enacted  that  "no  mere  Irishman  could  be  a 
mayor  or  baililT,  or  officer  of  any  town  within  the  Eng^ 
lisli  districts,''  nor  could  he,  "hereafter,  under  pretense 
of  kindred  or  other  cause,  be  received  into  liolv  orders 
or  advanced  to  any  ecclesiastical  benefice."  Thus  we 
find  that  Catholic  England  has  been  just  as  bitter  in  its 
proscriptive  spirit  against  Ireland  and  the  Irish  as 
Protestant  England  ;  it  has  ahvays  been  more  a  question 
of  race  and  nationality  than  of  religion. 


72 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


In  1361  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  second  son  of 
Edward,  was  sent  over  to  Ireland  as  Lord  Deputy,  with 
lifteen  hundred  men.  He  proceeded  to  exterminate  ■ 
the  rebel  natives  of  Clare,  but  was  defeated  with  con- 
siderable loss.  Under  him  was  enacted,  in  1367,  the 
celebrated  statute  of  Kilkenny,  which  declared  that 
"  whereas  many  English  of  the  land  of  Ireland,  forsak- 
ing the  English  language,  manners,  mode  of  riding, 
and  nsages,  live  and  govern  themselves  according  to 
the  manners,  fashion,  and  language  of  the  Irish 
enemies,  and  also  have  made  divers  marriages  and 
alliances  between  themselves  and  the  Irish  enemies 
aforesaid,  it  is  therefore  enacted,"  among  other  pro- 
visions, '*  that  all  intermarriages,  fosterings,  gossipred, 
buying  or  selling  with  the  'enemie'  shall  be  accounted 
treason;  that  English  names,  fashions,  and  manners  . 
shall  be  resumed  under  the  penalty  of  the  confiscation 
of  the  delinquent's  lands  ;  that  March  law  and  Brehon 
law  are  illegal, and  that  there  shall  be  no  law  but  Eng- 
lish law;  that  the  Irish  shall  not  pasture  their  cattle  on 
English  lands;  that  the  English  shall  not  entertain 
Irish  rhymers,  minstrels,  or  newsmen;  and,  moreover, 
that  no  '  mere  Irishman'  shall  be  admitted  to  any 
ecclesiastical  benefice  or  religious  house  situated  within 
the  Engljsh  districts." 

This  sweeping  edict  compelled  the  Irish  to  combine 
against  the  common  enemy.  The  result  was  that  there 
was  a  general  rising  among  the  chiefs  and  princes.  In 
1369  O'Brien,  Prince  of  Thomond,  defeated  Garret,  Earl 
of  Desmond,  near  Adare,  and  slew  many  of  his  fol- 
lowers. Limerick  was  then  captured,  and  Carrick- 
fergus  shared  the  same  fate.  In  137.")  Burke  and  Talbot, 
two  English  commanders,  were  defeated  and  slain  at 
Downpatrick  by  Niall  O'Neill  of  Ulster.  It  was  at  this 
time  also  that  Art  MacMurrough,  King  of  Leinster, 


THE  ANGLO-NORMAN  INVASION. 


73 


entered  on  bis  long  contest  with  the  English  spoilers, 
and  became  tbe  great  champion  of  national  inde- 
pendence, as  also  Roderick,  the  last  King  of  Connaught. 
The  English  were  soon  driven  within  the  "Pale,"  as  the 
English  districts  in  Dublin,  Louth,  Kildare,  and  Meath 
were  called. 

Art  had  defeated  the  English  in  several  engagements, 
and  Richard  II.,  feeling  the  humiliation,  took  the  field 
against  him  in  person,  but  mei.  w^ith  several  repulses. 
By  wiles  he  got  the  King  of  Leinster  into  his  power, 
but  the  latter  made  his  escape,  and  wj*s  soon  again  at 
the  head  of  his  troops.  In  1397  he  captured  Carlow, 
and  the  following  year  he  routed  Lord  Mortimer  and 
his  whole  armv.  Richard,  who  had  returned  to 
Eugland,  hurried  back  to  Ireland  with  an  army  of  over 
twenty  thousand  men.  MacMurrougli,  who  now  pro- 
claimed himself  "King  and  Lord  of  Ireland,"  A.  D. 
1399,  retired  before  the  immense  army  led  by  Richard, 
and  laid  waste  the  country  so  that  his  enemy  had  to 
fall  back  to  his  supplies  on  the  coast.  Richard  had  to 
return  to  England  to  oppose  Henry,  Duke  of  Lancaster, 
who  was  soon  afterwards  crowned  as  Henry  IV. 

The  war  continued  several  years  with  fluctuating  re- 
sults. In  the  year  1407  the  Irish  suffered  a  loss  of 
eight  hundred  men  at  Callan,  County  Kilkenny;  but 
this  defeat  was  more  than  counterbalanced  in  the  follow- 
ing year  by  a  great  victor}^  which  Art  gained  at 
Kilmainham  over  an  English  army  numbering  ten 
thousand  men.  On  the  10th  of  May,  1414,  O'Connor  of 
Connaught  defeated  the  enemy  at  Killncan,  and  three 
years  later  the  aged  MacMurrougli  died,  after  forty 
years  ot  warfare  against  the  enemies  of  his  country. 

The  death  of  the  great  Art  MacMurrougli  left  Ireland 
without,  a  leader  capable  of  competing  with  the  trea- 
cherous invaders.    The  mean,  vindictive  spite  of  the 


74 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


English  against  the  Irish  was  not  even  confined  to  lay 
men,  but  also  influenced  English  ecclesiastics,  most  of 
whom  held  civil  offices,  and  it  was  no  unusual  thing  for 
princes,  priests,  and  bishoj^s  to  raid  with  armed  bands 
against  the  natives.  Such  unchristian  and  tyrannical 
acts  tended  so  much  to  unite  the  natives  that  we  read 
in  a  petition  to  Henry  YI.,  in  1430,  that  *'  the  enemies 
and  rebels,  aided  by  the  Scotch,  had  conquered  or 
rendered  tributary  every  part  of  the  countiy,  except 
the  County  Dublin."  As  a  proof  of  the  intolerant" 
spirit  of  the  English  toward  the  Irish  about  this  time, 
their  Parliaments  had  passed  several  savage  statutes. 
One  was  "an  act  that  no  person,  liege  or  alien,  shall  take 
merchandise,  or  things  to  be  sold,  to  faire,  market,  or 
other  place  amongst  the  Irish  enemies,  under  pain  of 
imprisonment,  confiscation  of  goods,  and  felony.  In 
1442  an  act  was  passed  "that  it  should  be  lawful  for 
every  liege  man  tc  fake  all  manner  of  Irish  enemies, 
which  in  time  of  peace  should  come  and  converse 
amongst  them,  and  treat  them  as  of  the  King's  enemies,  ' 
that  is,  of  course,  to  put  them  to  death.  In  1447  a  law 
was  enacted  that  men  should  shave  their  upper  lip,  or 
be  treated  as  enemies;  an  act  was  passed  compelling 
the  sons  of  artisans  to  follow  the  occupations  of  their 
fathers,  thus  preventing  their  chance  of  preferment.  The 
system  of  "  coyn  and  livery."  which  empowered  them  to 
quarter  themselves  upon  the  natives  free  of  charge, 
came  into  opei-ation. 

Under  the  vicerovaltv  of  Richard,  Duke  of  York, 
who  was  appointed  in  1449,  Ireland  enjoyed  a  period 
of  repose,  and  wlien  the  Duke  inaugurated  the  War  of 
the  Roses  at  St.  Alban's,  in  his  airempt  to  gain  the 
English  throne,  so  popular  was  he  with  the  Irish  that 
they  fought  in  support  of  his  cause.  The  war  in 
England  between  the  rival  houses  of  York  and  Lancaster 


THE  ANGLO  NOKMAN  INVASION". 


75 


which  was  inaugurated  at  St.  Alban's  in  1455,  and 
terminated  by  the  battle  of  Tewkesbury  in  1485, 
afforded  a  chance  to  the  Irish  to  liing  off  the  English 
yoke.  Unfortunately,  though,  there  was  not  concert 
of  action  enough  among  them  to  accomplish  such 
results. 

In  the  third  year  of  Edward  IV.  an  act  was  passed, 
which  forced  every  Irishman  within  the  Pale  to  take 
to  him  an  English  snrname  of  one  town,  as,  Sutton, 
Chester,  Trim,  Skyrne,  Corke,  Kinsale;  or  color,  as, 
White,  Blacke,  Browne;  or  art  or  science,  as,  Smith  or 
Carpenter;  or  office,  as,  Cooke  or  Bntler;  and  that  he 
and  his  issue  shall  use  this  name  under  penalty  of  for- 
feiture of  his  goods  yearly."  It  appears  that  many 
persons  complied  with  this  law,  for  had  they  not  they 
would  be  in  constant  danger  of  being  put  to  death  at 
any  moment,  because,  in  14C5.  a  law  was  made,  en- 
titled, ''An  act  that  it  shall  be  lawful  to  kill  any 
Irishman  'that  is  found  robbino-  by  day  or  uioht,  or 
going  or  coming  to  rob  or  steal,  having  no  faithful  man 
'of  good  name  or  fame  in  their  company  in  English  ap- 
parel.'* Thus,  in  truth,  the  oidy  fact  necessary  to  be 
ascertained  was  that  a  person  was  an  Irishman  ;  for,  if 
he  were  not  robbing,  or  coming  from  robbing,  who  could 
say  but  that  he  might  be  going  to  rob?  Therefore,  he 
might  always  be  put  to  death.  As  an  encouragement 
to  secure  the  execution  of  this  act,  it  was  afterwards 
enacted  that  after  the  Endishman  had  murdered  his 
man  "going  to  rob,"  he  migiit  levy  a  tax  on  every 
household  in  the  barony  where  the  said  thief  was  taken. 

As  another  sample  of  English  laws,  in  a  Parliament 
held  in  Dublin  by  William  Sherwood,  Lord-Lieutenant, 
and  Bishop  of  Meath,  it  was  decreed  that  any  English- 
man injured  by  a  native  beyond  the  Pale  might  take 
vengeance  on  the  entire  sex)t  of  the  aggressor,  A.  D.  1475. 


76 


IRELAND   PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


The  introduction  of  guns,  which  were  first  used  in 
Ireland  by  Hugh  Roe  O'Donnell  in  1487  greath^  changed 
the  mode  of  warfare.  xVbout  the  same  time  Ireland  was 
agitated  by  the  Earl  of  Kildare  taking  the  part  of  the 
pretender  and  also  by  the  pretensions  of  Perkin  AVar- 
beck. 

In  149-4  Edward  Poynings  was  Lord-Lieutenant,  and, 
having  assembled  a  Parliament  at  Drogheda  in  the  fcl 
lowing  year,  an  act  was  passed,  which  provided,  among 
other  things,  that  thereafter  no  legislation  whatever 
should  be  enacted  in  Ireland,  until  the  bills  j^roposed 
were  first  submitted  to  the  King  and  Council  in  Eng- 
land, and  returned  approved  under  the  great  seal  of  the 
realm.    This  measure  is  known  as  *'Poynings's  Act." 

During  the  reign  of  Henry  VII.  the  authority  of  the 
Earl  of  Kildare,  who  was  Lord-Lieutenant,  was  all- 
powerful  within  the  Pale;  the  native  chiefs  wer3  wast 
ing  their  energies  in  frequent  strifes,  and  tlie  condition 
of  affairs  was  sad  on  the  whole.  The  turbulent  Kil- 
dare quarreled  with  his  son  in  law,  Ulick  de  Burgo;  a 
war  broke  out,  in  which  Kildare  was  assisted  by  the 
Geraldines  and  other  lords  of  the  Pale,  while  O'Brien 
of  Thomond  and  other  Munster  chiefs  took  side  with 
De  Burgo.  A  battle  was  fought  at  Knocktow,  near 
Galway,  in  which  Kildare  routed  his  enemies,  who  lost 
two  thousand  men.  As  an  instance  of  the  undying 
hatred  of  the  An£?lo-Irish  for  the  Irish,  Leland,  in  his 
history,  states  thac  after  the  battle  William  Preston, 
Viscount  of  Gormanstown,  said  to  the  Earl  of  Kildare, 
"We  have  slaughtered  our  enemies,  but  to  complete 
the  good  deed,  we  must  proceed  still  further — cut  the 
throats  of  those  Irish  of  our  party." 

In  1509  Henry  VII.  was  succeeded  by  Henry  VIII., 
and  in  the  following  year  Kildare,  the  Lord-Lieutenant, 
was  defeated  at  Monetrar  in  Munster  by  O'Brien  of 


THE  ANGLO  NOP.MAN  INVASION. 


77 


Thomond,  assisted  by  tlie  Earl  of  Desmond.  Three 
years  later  Carrickfergus  was  taken,  and  its  garrison 
put  to  the  sword  by  Hngli  O'Donnell  of  Tyrconnell. 
At  this  time  also  the  Eiirl  of  Kildare  died,  and  was 
succeeded  by  his  son  Gerald,  the  ninth  and  last  Catholic 
earl  of  the  name. 

At  the  accession  of  Henry  YIII.  the  English  held  in 
Ireland  only  half  of  the  five  counties  of  Dublin,  Meath, 
Louth,  Wexford,  and  Kildare.  Even  the  bulk  of  the 
inhabitants  of  these  districts  were  Irish  in  birth,  habits, 
and  language.  The  Geraldines  of  Munsterwere  gradu- 
ally extending  their  possessions  by  encroaching  upon 
the  native  chiefs,  but  at  last  MacCarthy  of  Carbery  and 
O'Brien  of  Thomond  united  their  forces  and  defeated 
them  with  a  loss  of  two  thousand  men,  A.  D.  1520.  A 
less  pleasing  victory  was  that  at  Knockavoe  in  Ulster, 
where  O'jN'eill  lost  nine  hundred  of  his  clansmen  in  a 
contest  against  his  rival,  O'Donnell. 

Desmond  assumed  the  dignity  of  a  king,  and  in  1525 
made  overtures  for  an  alliance  with  the  King  of  France 
to  drive  the  English  out  of  the  Pale,  and  thus  establish 
himself  as  King  of  Ireland.  The  King  ordered  the  Earl 
of  Kildare  to  chastise  the  haughty  Desmond,  but  Kil- 
dare not  having  done  so,  the  King  called  him  to  London 
to  account  for  his  conduct.  On  his  arrival  there  he  was 
imprisoned  in  the  Tower,  and  the  enemies  of  the  Earl 
forged  dispatches  to  his  son,  Lord  Thomas  Fitzgerald, 
called  "  Silken  Thomas,"  who  was  but  twenty  years  of 
age,  stating  that  his  father  had  been  murdered  m  the 
Tower.  Tliis  fired  the  vouncr  man,  who  rushed  into  the 
council  chamber  in  Dublin,  flung  his  sword  on  the 
table,  and  renounced  his  allegiance  to  the  King.  Silken 
Thomas  took  up  arms  against  the  royal  authority, 
and  overran  the  neigtiborliood  of  Dublin,  but  after 
some  time  he  \vas  treacherously  induced  by  a  promise 


78 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


of  pardon  by  Lord  Grey,  the  King's  Deputy,  to  submit. 
He  was  treaciierously  sent  a  prisoner  to  England,  and 
he  and  his  five  uncles  were  executed  together  at  T^'burn, 
on  February  3d,  1537. 


CHAPTER  Y. 

THE  REFOr.MATION. 

Ireland  and  lier  English  Trotestant  Rulers — Persecu- 
tion of  the  Catholics — tlie  Price  Set  on  a  Priest' s 
Head — Confiscation^  Spoliation^  and  Murder 

A  NEW  element  was  now  infused  into  the  conflict  in 
Ireland,  and  to  all  the  blind  passions  engendered  by 
national  hate  was  to  be  added  the  bitter  strife  of  re- 
ligions animosities.  In  the  sixteenth  century  the 
heresies  which  had  been  for  some  time  gaining  ground 
in  Germany  had  culminated  in  a  rebellion  against  the 
Catholic  Church.  In  Germany  the  principal  leader 
was  Martin  Luther,  a  discarded  friar  ;  in  Scotland,  John 
Knox,  an  apostate  monk;  in  Switzerland,  John  Calvin, 
a  rigid  fanatic;  and  in  England,  Henry  VIII.,  a  volup- 
tuous tyrant,  who  murdered  his  wives. 

In  153i>  John  Brown,  an  apostate  priest,  was  made 
first  Protestant  Archbishop  of  Dublin  by  the  King. 
Two  years  later  a  Parliament  was  convened  in  Dublin, 
which  legally  recognized  the  new  religion.  This 
Parliament  was  composed  chiefly  of  the  English  of 
the  Pale  and  of  English  officials  in  Dublin.  As  for 
the  bodj^  of  the  Irish  people,  from  the  first  they  dis- 
ow^ned  the  reformed  religion,  and  with  the  exception 
of  a  few  bishops  and  priests  and  some  laymen  who 


THE  REFORMATIOlSr. 


79 


were  subsidized,  all  continued  to  adhere  to  the  old  faith. 
The  reformers  soon  began  to  give  an  example  of  what 
they  meant  by  the  Reformation,'^  for  they  commenced 
a  wholesale  seizure  of  abbeys,  convents,  and  monasteries, 
which  were  confiscated  to  the  crown  or  given  in  bribes. 

The  Catholics  in  Ulster  resorted  to  arms,  but  were 
defeated  with  great  loss ;  they  then  entered  into  an  alli- 
ance with  James  V.  of  Scotland,  who  fitted  out  a  fleet, 
which  never  reached  Ireland.  In  1541  Henry  YIII. 
assembled  a  Parliament  of  his  followers  in  Dublin,  and 
had  himself  proclaimed  "I^ingof  Ireland."  The  fol- 
lowing chiefs  vowed  submission  to  the  usurper  and 
acknowledged  the  new  title,  namely:  Con  O'Neill  of 
Ulster,  who  was  rewarded  with  the  title  of  Earl  of 
Tyrone;  Murrough  O'Brien,  who  was  made  Earl  of 
Thomond  ;  and  Ulick  Mac  William  Burke,  who  was 
dubbed  Earl  of  Clanricarde  ;  Brian  Fitzpatrick  and 
Matthew,  the  son  of  O'Neill,  were  created  barons.  But 
when  they  returned  among  their  clans  they  were 
shunned  and  despised  for  their  servility,  and  some  of 
them  had  to  go  into  exile  to  avoid  the  loathing  and  furv 
of  men  who  before  their  submission  w^ould  have  died 
for  them.  During  this  reign  Meatli  was  divided  into 
the  counties  of  Meath  and  West  Meath. 

Henry  was  succeeded  by  his  son,  Edward  YL,  a  boy 
of  nine  years,  in  1547.  During  this  short  reign  several 
Irish  chiefs  who  rebelled  were  crushed  out  and  their 
lands  confiscated.  Edward  died  in  1553,  and  was  suc- 
ceeded by  his  sister,  Mary  Tudor,  who  was  a  Catholic. 
In  England  the  Parliament  and  most  of  the  reformers 
renounced  Protestantism.  The  districts  of  Leix  and 
O'Faily,  which  had  been  confiscated  under  the  former 
reign,  were  again  overrun,  and  w^ere  henceforth  called 
King's  County  and  Queen's  County.  Mary  was  suc- 
•  ceeded  by  Elizabeth  in  1558,  and  the  Parliament,  whose 


80  IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 

religion  was  that  of  the  reigning  sovereign,  again  be- 
came Protestant  and  declared  the  Queen  the  head  of 
the  Church.  The  most  noted  Irish  chief  at  this  period 
was  Shane  O'Neill  the  Proud,  who  took  the  title  of 
''King  of  Ulster."  He  deposed  his  father,  who  had  ac- 
cepted from  Henry  the  English  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrone. 

The  Earl  of  Sussex,  the  then  Queen's  Deputy  in 
Ireland,  reconstructed  the  country,,  and  changed  the 
territory  of  Annaly  into  the  County  Longford,  and  the 
counties  of  Clare,  Gal  way,  Sligo,  Mayo,  Lei  trim,  and 
Roscommon  were  formed  out  of  the  province  of  Conr 
naught.  In  the  meantime  Shane  O'Neill  was  extend- 
ing his  authority  over  the  whole  of  Ulster.  The  Queen 
summoned  him  to  England,  but  he  became  a  favorite 
with  her,  and  returned  liome  only  to  commence  hostili- 
ties, which  he  successfully  did  against  the.  allies  of 
Essex,  including  a  body  of  Scotch  who  had  landed  in 
Ulster.  Elizabeth  sent  commissioners  to  O'Neill,  offer- 
ing him  the  title  of  Earl  of  Tyrone  and  Baron  of  Dun- 
gannon.  O'Neill  proudly  replied.  "If,''  said  he, 
'•your  mistress.  Elizabeth,  be  Queen  of  England,  I  am 
O'Neill,  King  of  Ulster;  I  never  made  peace  with  her 
without  having  been  previously  solicited  to  it  by  her. 
I  am  not  ambitious  of  the  abject  title  of  earl;  both  my 
family  and  birth  raise  me  above  it.  T  will  not  yield 
precedence  to  any  one;  my  ancestors  have  been  Kings 
of  Ulster.  I  have  gained  that  kingdom  by  my  sword, 
and  by  my  sword  I  will  preserve  it." 

English  treachery  acccomplished  wliat  English  arms 
could  not,  and  the  brave  O'Neill  was  slain  at  Clanbuoy 
and  a  great  portion  of  his  vast  estates  were  confiscated 
to  the  English  crown  or  conferred  upon  the  English 
followers.  At  the  time  of  O'Neill's  death,  the  English 
within  the  Pale  were  rather  united  by  the  common 
danger  which  threaten  3d  them  on  all  sides,  while  outside 


-    THE  nT•:Fon^^ATlo^^.  ^81 

the  Pale  tlie  Irish  Were  harassed  by  petty  wars  and 
^  tlie  fiendish  cruelty  of  the  "undertakers"  and  other 
cutthroat  carpetbnggers  from  England,  who  under  i)ro. 
tection  of  the  government  committed  all  kinds  of  out- 
rages, crimes,  and  wholesale  assassinations.  They  were 
furnished  with  all  kinds  of  rights  and  privileges  from 
the  Queen  to  dispossess  the  natives  and  establish 
English  colonies  in  their  place.  The  most  famous  of 
these  was  Walter  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  who  ia  1573 
landed  in  Ulster  with  six  hundred  followers,  in  order 
to  seize  on  the  confiscated  lands  of  O'Neill,  granted  to 
liim  by  the  Queen.  The  better  to  carry  out  his  vil- 
lainous designs,  he  invited  Brian  O'Neill  of  Clanbuoy 
and  other  chieftains  to  a  banquet,  where  they  were 
TU'issacred,  Essex  being  rewarded  by  the  confiscation 
ol  tlipir  lands. 

In  Munster  the  houses  of  Ormond  and  Desmond,  the 
Butlers  and  the  Fitzgerolds,  struggled  for  supremacy. 
A  war  followed  which  almost  depopulated  the  fair  fields 
of  Munster.  In  the  conflict  the  princes  of  Munster 
formed  a  league  against  the  English.  Our  space  will 
not  permit  us  to  follow  the  terrible  struggle  that  fol- 
lowed. The  Earl  of  Desmond  was  captured  by  the 
English  and  sent  a  prisoner  to  London.  His  cousin, 
James  Fitzgerald,  still  waged  the  war,  and  had  driven 
the  English  to  such  straits,  that  Elizabeth  released  the 
Earl  on  condition  that  he  would  put  an  end  to  the  con- 
flict. This  the  Earl  was  unable  or  unwilling  to  do, 
and  the  brave  Fitzmaurice  Fitzgerald  continued  the 
conflict.  To  add  to  the  bitterness  of  parties,  in  1577 
Sir  Francis  Crosby,  President  of  Leinster,  with  the  ap- 
proval ot  the  Lord  Deputj^^  invited  the  native  chieis  to 
a  conference  at  Mullaghmast,  in  King's  Count3\  hold- 
ing out  to  them  flattering  inducements  of  a  lavorable 
settlement  of  affairs.    The  result  was  that  about  eight 


82*  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

liuiidred  of  the  assembled  chiefs  and  their  retainers 
were  murdered  in  cold  blood. 

Fitznuiurice  lied  to  the  Continent  to  obtain  assistance 
from  the  Catholic  powers,  and  with  the  assistance  of 
Pope  Gregory  XIIL  he  organized  an  expedition  for 
Ireland,  but  the  expedition  failed,  owing  to  the  treachery 
of  the  commander  of  the  Heet,  who  was  in  the  interest 
of  England.  Tlie  brave  Fitzmaurice  Fitzgerald  returned 
to  Ireland  with  a  few  followers,  and  was  slain  in  a  con- 
ilict  with  some  of  his  own  kindred  who  were  as  base  as 
he  was  noble. 

The  old  Earl  of  Desmond  was  again  forced  to  take 
the  field  by  his  enemies,  who  coveted  his  broad  acres. 
In  this  conllict  the  so-called  chivalrous  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh  distinguished  himself  by  massacring  in  cold 
blood,  after  they  had  given  up  their  arms  under  promise 
of  safety,  a  garrison  of  eight  hundred  Spaniaids  who 
held  the  fort  at  Smerwick,  County  Kerrv,  andonlv  sur- 
rendered  on  condition  of  their  lives  being  spared  and 
being  allowed  to  return  to  their  own  country.  The 
poet  Spenser,  who  was  present,  encouraged  the  brutal 
crime. 

After  making  a  c^allnnt  stru£r£rle.  Earl  Desmond  was 
forced  in  loS-i  to  seek  safety  in  concealment.  Over- 
come,  his  troops  scattered,  himself  a  fugitive,  the  Eail 
was  at  length  discovered  and  murdered  by  an  English 
soldier,  and  his  head  sent  as  a  present  to  the  Queen, 
who  hnd  said  of  O'Neill,  "If  he  revolted,  it  would  be 
better  for  her  servants,  as  there  would  be  estates  enough 
for  them  all.''  This  single  expression  of  Elizabeth 
reveals  the  entire  policy  of  the  English  government 
towards  Ireland.  That  injured  country  was  the  great 
repast  to  which  every  monarch  bid  his  lords  sit  down 
and  eat.  After  they  had  gorged  their  fill,  the  remains 
were  left  for  those  wdio  should  come  after.  Tranquillity 


THE  REFORMATION, 


83 


succeeded  these  massacres,  but  it  was  the  tranquillity  of 
the  graveyard.  The  proud  and  patriotic  Irishmen  were 
folded  in  the  sleep  of  death,  and  the  silence  and  repose 
around  their  lifeless  corpses  was  called  peace. 

Desmond's  vast  estates,  amounting  to  about  six  hun- 
dred thousand  acres,  were  confiscated  and  divided 
among  his  enemies,  who  had  goaded  him  on  to  destruc- 
tion. The  condition  of  Munster  after  the  war  was  piti- 
able. In  the  language  of  the  poet  Spenser,  who  profit  ted 
by  the  spoils,  that most  populous  and  plentiful  country 
was  reduced  to  aheap  of  carcasses  and  ashes  and  Hol- 
linshed  tells  us  that  the  English  soldiers  "  spared  neither 
man,  woman,  nor  child,  but  all  were  committed  to  the 
sword."  After  the  rebellion  the  English  soldiers  inaugu- 
rated  a  regular  war  of  extermina  tion.  They  burned  down 
the  houses  over  the  people,  and  if  any  attempted  to  escape 
they  were  flung  back  to  feed  the  flames.  It  was  a  diver- 
sion to  these  monsters  to  take  up  infants  on  the  points 
of  their  spears  and  whirl  them  about  in  their  terrible 
agony,  justifying  their  cowardl\^  brutality  by  remark- 
ing that,  If  they  were  allowed  to  live  they  would  grow 
up  papisli rebels."  Lombard,  in  his  "Commentaries,'* 
tells  us  that  "many  women  were  found  hanging  on  trees, 
with  their  children  at  their  breasts,  strangled  by  the 
mothers  hair." 

This  savage  state  of  things  was  even  made  more 
atrocious  by  the  religious  persecutions  which  accom- 
panied it.  The  following  illustrious  persons  were  put 
to  deatli  on  account  of  their  reli^fion  about  this  tinif\ 
namely:  Patrick  O'Healy.  Bisliop  of  Mayo,  racked  and 
'Strangled,  1578;  Dr.  O'HurleN',  Archbishop  of  Cashel. 
hanged,  1584;  and  liichard  Creagh,  Archbishop  oT 
Armagli,  Primate  of  all  Ireland,  poisoned  in  the  Tower 
of  London,  1585.  Besides  these,  scores  of  bishoj^s  and 
priests  were  barbarously  hanged,  drawn,  and  quartered 
for  the  faith,  in  different  i)arts  of  the  country. 


84 


IRELAND,  TAST  AND  PKESENT. 


No  sooner  was  the  Gerald ine  League  drowned  in  blood 
than  the  hopes  of  bleeding  Ireland  were  again  revived. 
The  Spanish  Armada  was  htted  out  against  England 
by  Philip  II.  of  Spain.  But  the  hope  this  promised 
was  soon  dispelled  by  the  melancholy  fate  of  the  ex- 
pedition. The  brave  Hugh  O'Neill  next  took  the  field. 
He  had  organized  a  powerful  confederacy  of  the  Irish 
chiefs,  but  his  principal  allies  were  the  Maguires  of 
Fermanagh  and  the  O'Donnells  of  Tyrconnell.  O'Neill 
was  an  able  general  and  crafty  statesman,  and  in  him 
the  English  found  a  formidable  rival.  He  routed  the 
army  of  Sir  John  Norris  at  Clontibert.  He  w^as  also 
victorious  in  several  encounters,  the  most  prominent 
of  w^hich  was  the  battle  of  the  Yellow  Ford,  near  Ar- 
magh, August  15th,  1598,  in  which  the  English  loss 
was  veiy  large. 

Elizabeth  sent  over  her  favorite,  Robert,  Earl  of 
Essex,  son  of  the  famous  Ulster  "undertaker,"  to  take 
command  of  the  army.  He  had  command  of  a  large 
army,  which  he  soon  frittered  aw^ay  in  conflict  with  the 
wil}^  O'Neill,  and  he  returned  to  England  in  disgrace. 
He  was  succeeded  by  Lord  Mountjoy  as  the  next  Lord 
Deputy,  who  soon  accomplished  by  art  and  cunning 
what  Essex  failed  to  do  by  the  sword.  He  resorted  to 
bribery  and  assassination.  He  issued  new  titles  of 
honor  and  distinction  to  rival  chiefs,  in  order  to  embroil 
them  against  each  other.  In  1601  about  three  thousand 
Spaniards  landed  and  took  i:)ossession  of  Kinsale,  but 
were  soon  compelled  to  surrender  to  Mountjoy, 

The  country  was  reduced  to  a  frightful  state  of  deso- 
lation and  death.  Bishops  and  priests  were  slaughtered 
without  compunction,  and  fifty-one  monks  who  accepted 
the  offer  of  a  free  passage,  on  condition  of  leaving  the 
county,  Avere  all  flung  into  the  ocean. 

The  brave  O'Neill  had  also  to  succumb  to  English 


THE  REEORMATION. 


85 


wiles  and  treachery,  and  submitted  on  honorable  terms. 

On  the  death  of  Elizabeth,  James  VI.  of  Scotland, 
who  took  the  title  of  "James  I.,  King  of  Great  Biitain 
and  Ireland,"  ascended  the  throne.  Though  the  Irish 
expected  justice  under  his  reign,  they  were  disappointed, 
for  the  penal  laws  were  strictly  enforced  and  religious 
persecution  tolerated.  A  conspiracy  was  got  up  against 
O'Neill,  Earl  of  Tyrone.  O^Donnell,  Earl  of  Tyrconuell, 
and  other  chiefs,  who  had  to  fly  to  the  Continent  in 
1507..  This  was  called  the  "Flight  of  the  Earls."  All 
of  them  died  in  exile,  brokenhearted  and  in  want. 
After  their  flight  (he  six  counties  of  Ulster  were  con- 
flsoated.  The  Protestant  bishops  of  Ulster  got  forty- 
three  thousand  acres;  Trinity  College,  thirty  thousand 
acres;  the  trades-union  associations  of  London,  two 
hundred  and  nine  thousand  eight  hundred  acres,  in- 
cluding the  city  of  Derry,  which  they  rebuilt  and  called 
Londonderry.  Private  individuals  received  the  remain- 
der in  sections  of  one  thousand,  one  thousand  five 
.  hundred,  and  two  thousand  acres  each — in  all,  about 
three  hundred  and  eighty-five  thousand  acres.  All 
Catholics  were  excluded  from  participation  in  the 
robbery. 

A  new  confiscation  soon  followed,  and  under  the  color 
of  defective  titles.  Sir  William  Parsons  confiscated  to 
the  crown  about  five  hundred  thousand  acres  in 
Leinster,  and  proceedings  had  been  undertaken  to  con- 
fiscate Connaught  also,  when  James  died,  in  1625. 
Charles  I.  treated  his  Irish  subjects  with  the  same 
^  cruelty  as  his  father.  He  was  advised  by  Thomas 
Wentworth,  Earl  of  Strafford,  under  whose  advice  he 
confiscated  large  portions  of  Connaught,  under  the  so- 
called  "Defective  Titles"  commission.  Strafford  in- 
stituted a  "court  of  wards,"  with  power  to  take  all 
Catholic  children  and  bring  them  up  as  Protestants^ 


66  IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

To  avoid  religious  persecution  at  home,  Lord  Baltimore, 
an  Irish  Catholic  peer,  settled  in  Maryland  in  1634, 
granting  to  al]  classes  perfect  religious  equality. 

In  1632  the  Four  Masters  commenced  their  labors  in 
the  Abbe}'  of  Donegal,  wbich  they  completed  in  1686. 

The  Puritans,  who  were  fanatical  followers  of  Calvin, 
rose  to  great. power  liorh  in  England  and  Ireland  in  the 
reign  of  Charles  1.  They  issued  a  manifesto  in  Ireland 
declaring  that  they  would  not  leave  a  priest  in  the 
country,"  and  that  they  would  convert^  the  people 
with  the  sword  in  one  hand  and  the  Bible  in  the  other. 
They  had  sworn  the  extermination  not  only  of  Catholics, 
but  also  of  the  whole  Irish  race. 

The  Catholics  were  again  driven  to  take  up  arms  in 
8elf-defense,  and  took  the  field  under  the  leadership  of 
Roger  O' Moore  and  Sir  Phelim  O'xseill.  Sir  Charles 
Coote,  witii  the  Scotch  garrison  at  Carrickfergus, 
massacied  three  thousand  unarmed  men,  women,  and 
children  on  the  Island  Magee.  Coote  was  a  relentless 
butcher,  and  a  suckling  babe  or  a  pregnant  woman  re- 
ceived no  more  mercy  from  him  than  an  enemy  taken 
in  arms."  The  Catholic  lords  of  the  Pale  were  driven 
to  join  their  Irish  co-religionists. 

The  government,  in  order  to  raise  money  to  carrj'  on 
the  war,  confiscated  two  and  a  half  million  acres  of 
lands  owned  by  Catholics,  and  sold  them  to  Protestants 
for  one  million  pounds,  which  enabled  them  to  put  an 
arm\  in  the  field  under  command  of  James  Butler, 
Duke  of  Ormond,  whose  treachery  was  only  surpassed 
by  his  craft.  The  Council  at  Dublin  Castle  sent  him 
the  following  instruction  :  "It  is  resolved  that  it  is  fit 
that  his  Lordship  do  endeavor  with  his  Majesty's  forces 
to  wound,  kill,  slay,  and  destroy,  by  all  the  w^ays  and 
means  he  may,  all  the  said  rebels,  their  adherents  and 
relievers;  and  burn,  waste,  spoil,  consume  destroy,  and 


THE  REFORMATIOX. 


87 


demolish  all  the  places,  towns,  and  houses  where  the 
said  rebels  are  or  have  been  relieved  or  harbored,  and 
all  the  hay  or  corn  there;  and  kill  and  destroy  all  the 
men  there  inhabiting,  capable  to  bear  arms."  Given 
at  the  Castle  of  DiibUn,  on  the  23d  of  February,  1642. 

In  March,  1642.  the  bishops  of  the  Synod  of  Kells 
declared  the  war  ''just  and  lawful,''  and  on  the  10th 
of  Mav  followinoj  the  Confederation  of  Kilkenny  was 
held,  at  which  the  supreme  power  was  vested  in  a 
council  composed  of  three  archbishops,  two  bishops, 
four  lords,  and  lifteen  commissiuuers.  Lord  Mount- 
garret  was  president  of  this  council. 

On  July  6th  Colonel  Owen  Roe  O'Xeill  landed  ia 
Donegal  with  one  hundred  officers  and  supplies,  and  in 
September  Colonel  Thomas  Preston  arrived  at  Wex- 
ford with  five  hundred  oflacers,  arms  and  supplies. 
Owen  Roe  O'Xeill  was  appointed  to  carry  on  the  war 
in  Ulster,  Thomas  Preston  in  Leinster,  James  Barry  in 
Munster,  and  John  Burke  in  Connauirlir.  The  Con- 
federate  troops  were  successful  at  Portlester.  Kil worth, 
and  Galway,  but  were  defeated  at  Kilrush,  Lisscarroll, 
Bailynakill.  Rathconnell,  and  Ardmore. 

The  Puritans  in  England  had  taken  up  arms  against 
the  King,  and  in  an  evil  hour  the  Anglo-Irish  members 
of  the  Supreme  Council  entered  into  a  truce  with 
Ormond  for  twelve  months  and  yoted  money  and  men 
to  aid  the  King.  While  the  Catholics  were  inactive, 
observing  the  truce.  General  Monroe  attacked  Xewry 
and  put  several  to  death.  While  the  Puritans  were 
thus  killing  the  Irish,  the  wily  Ormond  controlled  the 
Confederation  through  the  Anglo-Irish  members. 
Though  the  Irish  members  and  the  Pope's  nuncio  were 
for  immediate  war,  their  counsels  were  overruled  by  the 
others.  Even  the  ''No  Quarter  Act,"  issued  by  the 
English  Parliament  in  1644,  did  not  stimulate  them  to 


88 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


a  sense  of  their  dutv.  This  infamous  order  read  as 
follows:  *'The  lords  and  commons,  assembled  in  the 
Pcirliament  of  England,  do  declare  that  no  quarter  shall 
he  given  to  any  Irishman,  or  to  any  papist  born  in 
Ireland,  which  shall  be  taken  in  hostility  against  the 
Parliament,  either  uj^on  sea,  or  within  the  kingdom  or 
dominion  of  AVales;  and,  therefore,  do  order  that  the 
Lord  General,  the  Lord  AdmiraL  and  all  other  officers 
and  commanders,  both  by  sea  and  land,  shall  except 
all  Irishmen  and  all  papists  born  in  Ireland  out  of  all 
capitulation  hereafter  to  be  made  with  the  enemy,  and 
shall,  upon  the  taking  of  every  such  Irishman  and  papist 
born  in  Ireland,  as  aforesaid,  forthwith  put  every  such 
person  to  death.''  Fifteen  hundred  Irish  were  serving 
under  the  banner  of  Charles  in  Scotland,  while  the 
Puritans  were  massacring  their  kindred  at  home. 

The  arrival  of  John  Baptisto  Rinuccini,  Archbishop 
of  Fermo,  wuo  landed  in  Munster  as  nuncio  <^f  Inno- 
cent X.,  with  a  supply  of  arms  and  money,  gave  heart 
to  the  Irish.  He  was  in  favor  of  a  vigorous  prosecu- 
tion of  the  war,  but  Ormond's  wishes  prevailed,  and 
the  Anglo-Irish  members  not  only  succeeded  in  thwart- 
ing the  war  party,  but  also  effected  a  treaty  with 
Charles,  who  wanted  any  assistance  he  could  get  against 
his  own  subjects.  They  even  voted  the  King  six 
thousand  tmops  to  aid  him  against  his  enemies.  Soon 
after  Charles  was  forced  to  seek  refuge  among  the 
Scotch,  who  meanlv  sold  him  to  his  own  Parliament 
for  two  hundred  thousand  pounds,  and  he  was  beheaded 
on  Januai'y  30th,  1649. 

>  Tl  u'ough  the  divisions  in  the  Supreme  Council 
Ireland  lost  another  chance  of  flinging  off  the  English 
yoke,  for  had  she  vigorously  prosecuted  the  war  at 
home,  while  the  King  and  Parliamentarians  were  light- 
ing it  out  in  England,  her  success  would  have  been 
assured.    Tliis  has  always  been  the  ruin  of  Ireland; 


I 


THE  PwEFORMATION.  89 

petty  quarrels  and  jealous  rivalries  step  in  to  destroy 
lier  brightest  hopes  and  most  glowing  prospects. 

The  brave  Owen  Roe  O'Neill  defeated  the  Puritans 
in  several  battles,  the  greatest  of  which  was  at  Benburb 
v^here  he  defeated  Monroe  and  eight  thousand  troops 
on  June  4th,  1646.  The  Supreme  Council  soon  came 
to  an  open  rupture,  and  the  war  langnislied  until 
Cromwell  was  able  to  turn  his  attention  from  English 
affairs  to  Ireland.  In  1649  Rinuccini  left  Ireland  in 
disgust,  and  Cromwell  with  fourteen  thousand  fol- 
lowers landed  in  Dublin  the  same  year. 

Cromwell's  career  in  Ireland  wsls  one  of  the  most 
bloody  on  record.  It  is  remarkable  for  the  amount  of 
blood  which  he  shed  in  a  few  months.  Thus,  at 
Drogheda,  although  quarter  had  been  promised,  the 
work  of  slaughter  lasted  five  days,  and  the  three 
thousand  men  comprising  the  garrison  were  put  to  the 
sword,  together  with  one  thousand  unresisting  victims, 
who  had  sought  refuge  in  the  great  church.  The  few 
who  espaped  death  were  sent  as  slaves  to  the  Barbadoes, 
September  11th.  At  Wexford  the  enemy  broke  into 
the  town  during  a  truce,  and  "no  distinction,"  says 
Lingard,  "was  made  between  the  defenseless  inhabit- 
ants and  the  armed  soldiers;  nor  could  the  shrieks  of 
three  hundred  females,  who  had  gathered  round  the 
great  cross,  preserve  them  from  the  swords  of  these 
ruthless  barbarians."  By  Cromwell  himself  the  num- 
ber slaughtered  here  is  put  down  at  two  thousand,  in- 
cluding men,  women,  and  children. 

The  only  general  able  to  meet  him  was  the  brave 
Owen  Roe  O'Neill,  who  died  while  marching  to  meet 
him,  at  Clough  Oughter  Castle,  not  without  strong  sus- 
picion of  being  poisoned  by  his  enemies. 

Cromwell  was  declared  Lord  Protector  in  1653.  He 
confiscated  in  all  about  seven  million  acres  of  land  in 


•  « 


90 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Ireland,  dri\ing  the  natives  "  to  hell  or  to  Connnught." 
!Not  content  with  sucli  sweeping  conliscations,  forty 
thousand  fighting  men  were  forced  to  seek  shelter  in 
foreign  lands;  and  at  least  sixty  thousand  boys  nnd 
girls,  men  and  women,  were  sent  as  slaves  to  Virginia, 
New  England,  and  the  West  India  Islands.  Cromwell 
died  in  ICjS,  after  having  massacred  the  Irish  people  in 
thousands,  plundered  their  monasteries,  churciies,  and 
convents,  and  put  to  death  three  bishops,  three  hun- 
dred priests,  and  several  monks  and  nuns. 

In  1660  Charles  11.  ascended  the  throne,  and  the 
treacherous  Ormond  was  appointed  Lord-Lieutenant  of 
Ireland,  Under  him  the  Puritans  ruled  Ireland,  and  the 
Catholics  met  with  nothing  but  persecution.  All  kinds 
of  new  plots  and  outrages  were  charged  to  them,  just  as 
they  are  to  the  Land  Leaguers  in  our  day, as  a  pretext  for 
persecuting  them.  Among  the  illustrious  men  persecuted 
to  deatli  was  Oliver  Plunket,  Archbishop  of  Armagh, 
who  was  executed  at  Tyburn,  July  11th,  1681. 

On  the  death  of  Charles  he  was  succeeded  by  his 
brother,  James  II.,  A.  D.  1685.  James  was  a  Catholic 
and  tried  to  restore  libertv  of  conscience,  but  the  same 
Puritanical  element  which  sent  Charles  1.  to  the  block 
succeeded  in  depriving  James  of  his  throne.  They  in- 
duced William,  Prince  of  Orange,  who  was  married  to 
James's  daughter,  to  accept  the  crown  After  James 
was  driven  •''rom  EugUmd  he  found  refuge  in  Ireland, 
and  loyal  Irish  hearts  and  arms  to  espouse  his  cause. 
That  brave. people,  though  weakened  by  successive  and 
disastrous  wars,  and  impoverished  by  confiscations, 
rallied  around  him,  and  would  have  placed  him  again 
on  the  throne,  had  not  his  own  cowardic::^  and  effeminacy 
defeated  their  eflorts.  William  folio\A^ed  James  to 
Ireland,  and  the  battle  which  settled  the  succession  was 
fought  at  the  Boyne,  July  12th,  1690. 


THE  REFORMATIOX. 


91 


After  James's  fliglifc  the  Irish  continued  the  conflict, 
and  the  battles  oi*  Aiiglirim  and  Limerick  attest  how 
bravely  they  did  so.  After  the  siege  of  Limerick  four- 
teen thousand  men  entered  the  service  of  France,  and 
it  is  estimated  that  in  all  nearly  half  a  million  entered 
tlie  French'army.  The  penal  laws  caused  thousands  of 
young  men  to  flee  to  America,  or  to  join  their  country- 
men in  the  service  of  France.  Spain,  and  Austria. 
Tliey  were  eagerly  welcomed  everywhere.  Louis  XIY. 
spoke  of  them  as  ''  my  brave  Irish."  Francis  I.  of  Ger- 
many said  of  them:  ^'Tlie  more  Irish  officers  in  the 
Austriati  army,  the  better;  an  Irish  coward  is  an  un- 
common character.",  Tlie  Irish  soldiers  greatly  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  the  following  battles:  At 
Landen,  in  Flanders,  and  at  Massiglin,  in  Savoy,  1698; 
at  Cremona,  in  Italy,  1702;  at  Ramilles,  in  Flanders, 
1706;  at  Almanza,  in  Spain,  1707;  at  Viletry,  in  Italy, 
1713;  and  at  Oran,  in  Sicily,  1733. 

We  have  slightly  digressed,  so  we  return  to  William 
and  the  penal  laws.  After  James  had  proved  himself 
unworthy  to  be  a  king,  the  Irish  would  gladly  have 
submitted  to  William,  if  he  had  promised  them  justice. 
But  knowing  that  new  conflscations  awaited  their  sub- 
mission, they  resisted  on;  and  but  for  causes  over  which 
they  had  no  control  and  which  no  one  could  foi'esee, 
would  probably  have  triumphed.  This  war,  which  re- 
flects so  much  credit  on  the  Iiish  arms,  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  the  British  national  debt,  which  has  since  gone 
on  accumulating,  till  it  threatens  to  swallow  u])  the 
wealth  of  the  empire. 

The  confiscations  of  estates  by  the  government  of 
William  turned  out  of  their  homes  nearly  4,000  families, 
and  robbed  them  of  land  to  the  value  of  £3,319,043, 
or  over  $16,500,000.  This  mighty  robbery  was  for 
high  treason,  which  high  treason  consisted  in  defending 


92 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


the  British  throne  against  a  usnrper.  The  century  that 
succeeded  the  revolutionary  war  is  simply  a  long  record 
of  oppressions,  crimes,  and  sufferings.  Ireland  had 
ceased  to  struggle,  and  lay  a  helpless  victim  at  the  feet  of 
its  merciless  masters.  The  vulture  now  jilunged  its 
beak  into  the  bleeding  form  of  its  prey,  and  tore  away 
"the  flesh  at  its  leisure. 

The  i^enal  laws  enacted  during  this  period  are  a  per- 
petual stain  on  the  English  government.  These,  together 
with  the  injustice  and  tvrannv  of  the  local  ma^istracv, 

•I  V  ft/  Oft/' 

the  extortions  of  landlords,  and  the  absence  of  justice 
in  all  trials  where  an  Irishman  was  concerned,  reduced 
the  inhabitants  almost  to  the  last  step  humanity  reaches 
in  its  downward  i^assage.  These  laws,  which  would 
have  disgraced  the  administration  of  Nero,  imposed  a 
fine  on  every  Catholic  who  should  absent  himself  from 
the  service  of  the  Established  Church  on  the  Sabbath  ; 
deprived  them  of  the  means  of  education,  subjecting 
every  Catholic  who  should  open  a  school  to  a  fine  of  £20, 
or  three  months'  imprisonment;  forbade  Protestants  to 
intermarrv  with  them,  and  banished  the  entire  Catholic 
clenxv  from  the  land.  If  the  son  of  a  Catholic  became 
a  Protestant,  the  father  could  not  dispose  of  his  pro- 
perty by  will  ;  a  Catholic  could  not  become  the 
guardian  of  his  own  child;  a  Catholic  could  not  succeed 
to  the  property  of  any  of  his  Protestant  relatives.  In 
1709  additional  acts  were  passed,  and  among  them  a 
fixed  reward  offered  for  the  discovery  of  Catholic  priests! 

For  discovering  an  archbishop,  bishop,  vicar-general, 
or  other  person  exercising  any  foreign  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction,  £50. 

*'For  discovering  each  regular  clergyman,  and  each 
secular  clergyman  not  registered,  £20. 

"For  discovering  each  popish  schoolmaster  or  usher, 
£10.' 


THE  REFORMATION. 


93 


A  Catholic  could  not  hold  the  ofRce  of  sheriff  or  sit 
on  grand  juries  ;  hence  in  all  trials  between  a  Catholic 
and  Protest-ant  justice  was  a  thing  altogether  out  of  the 
question.  To  crown  th^  absurdity  and  baseness  of  this 
Protestant  legislation,  a  bill  was  actually  introduced, 
and  passed  both  houses  of  Parliament,  decreeing  that 
every  Catholic  priest  who  came  into  the  country  should 
be  * 'emasculated."  After  its  passage,  it  was  sent  to  the 
i^ing,  with  the  earnest  request  it  niiglu  be  placed  in 
the  Irish  statute-book.  It  was,  however,  rejected  by 
the  English  privy  council.  Nor  did  the  enactment  of 
these  absurd  and  cruel  laws  exhaust  the  hatred  of  the 
enemies  of  Ireland.  Her  commerce  and  manufactures 
were  restricted,  so  that  her  internal  resources  could  not 
develop  themselves,  and  her  beautiful  harbors  lay  un- 
occupied along  her  shores. 

In  1727  George  II.  ascended  the  throne;  like  every 
other  administration,  this  also  must  show  its  English 
blood,  by  plunging  the  knife  a  little  deeper  into  dying 
Ireland.  In  the  outset  a  bill  was  passed  disfranchising 
all  the  Catholics  in  the  nation.  They  then  constituted 
Jioe-sixtlis  of  the  entire  population  :  only  one-sixth 
Avere  left  to  vote,  these  being  Protestants,  and  most  of 
them  English.  A  more  tyrannical  act  could  not  well 
Jiave  been  conceived;  but  the  ingenuity  of  English  rulers 
in  devising  modes  of  oppression  seemed  sharpened  by 
practice. 


94 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PEESENT. 


CHAPTER  YL 

THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence — Tlie  Rebellion  of 
^98— The  Union — The  Repeal  Moi^ement — The  Fam- 
ine in  Ireland — The  Men  of  '48. 

After  the  sarrender  of  Limerick,  Ireland  seemed  to 
give  up  all  idea  of  armed  resistance.  Her  only  hope 
was  in  the  retnrn  '^f  the  ''Wild  Geese,"  as  those  'vvho 
had  tied  to  France  to  enter  her  service  were  called. 

The  war  in  xAmerica  infused  new  liopes  into  the  Irish, 
and  when  the  colonies  declared  their  independence,  July 
4th,  1776,  there  was  secret  rejoicing  at  home,  while  the 
Irish  in  America  rushed  to  do  battle  for  independence. 
The  Irish  in  North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Georgia, 
Maryland,  New  Hampshire,  and  Pennsylvania  raised 
in  all  about  sixteen  thousand  soldiers,  all  Irisli,  for  the 
Continental  army.  The  Pennsylvania  Line,"  which 
was  called  the  "Irish  Brigade,"  was  composed  alto- 
gether of  Irish.  Amonii  the  leaders  of  the  Revolution 
were  these  Irishmen:  Montgomery.  Moylan,  Sullivan, 
Clinton.  Staik.  Knox,  Hand.  Dillon,  Rutledge, O'Brien, 
Patrick  Henry,  and  Commodore  Jolin  Barry,  tiie 
''Father  of  the  American  Navy";  Colonels  Bul-ler, 
Clinton,  Fitzgerald,  Gordan,  Divine,  Kennedy,  Mc- 
Allister, Nixon,  Shea,  Stewart,  Thompson,  and  many 
others.  Colonel  Nixon  first  read  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  to  the  people.    The  following  Irishmen 


THE  VOLUNEEERS  OF  '82. 


95 


signed  the  Declaration  of  Independence :  Cliarles 
Thompson,  who  was  secretary  to  the  Congress,  George 
Read,  Thomas  Lynch,  George  Taylor,  James  Wilson, 
Edward  Rutledge,  Matthew  Thornton,  James  Smith, 
Thomas  McKean,  and  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton. 

Fearing  a  French  invasion,  the  government  consented 
to  the  raising  of  the  Irish  Volunteers  in  Ulster,  and  in 
a  few  months  Ireland  had  a  national  army  eighty-eight 
thousand  strong.  Seeing  their  opportunity  of  wresting 
concessions  from  England.  Flood,  Perry,  Grattan,  and 
Charlemont  inspired  the  army  with  their  own  national 
sentiments.  Grattan,  finding  Ireland  ripe  and  the  time 
opportune,  drew  up  resolutions  establishing  the  judicial 
and  legislative  independence  of  Ireland,  and,  owing  to 
his  eloquence  and  devotion,  they  w^ere  approved  by 
Parliament  and  became  laws  on  receiving  the  sanction 
of  the  King,  May  27th,  1782.  The  words  of  the  patriot 
Gattan  on  this  joyous  occasion  were:  "  I  found  Ireland 
on  her  knees;  I  watched  over  her  with  paternal  solici- 
tude; I  have  traced  her  progress  from  injury  to  arms, 
and  from  arms  to  liberty.  Spirit  of  Swift !  Spirit  of 
Molyneux !  your  genius  has  prevailed  !  Ireland  is 
now  a  nation  !  In  that  new  character  I  hail  her!  and, 
bowing  to  her  august  jn-esence,  I  say,  Esto  peiyetua 

The  prosperity  of  Ireland  under  her  own  Parliament 
was  remarkable.  Peace  reigned,  trade  revived,  the 
revenue  increased,  various  industries  were  encouraged, 
the  Bank  of  Ireland  was  established,  and  the  future 
promised  well  for  Ireland.  This  was  buc  a  transitory 
gleam  of  hope:  England  at  peace  was  bent  on  undoing 
the  concessions  granted  by  England  at  war,  and  the 
Rebellion  of  '98,  which  was  forced  on  the  country  in 
order  to  rob  her  of  her  Parliament,  was  the  consequence. 
The  i:)eople  were  goaded  into,  rebellion.  Martial  law 
was  proclaimed;  thousands  of  soldiers,  English,  Ger- 


96 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


man,  Scotch,  and  Welsli,  were  brought  into  the  coun- 
try and  allowed  to  live  at  free  quarters.  People  were 
insulted  and  ill  treated  by  these  minions  of  the  govern- 
ment, and  there  was  no  redress.  The  pitch-cap,  whip- 
ping, half-hanging,  picketing,  burning  off  tliehair,  and 
like  barbarities  were  sanctioned  by  the  authorities. 
No  man  was  sure  of  his  life,  and  many  were  taken 
without  warrant  and  hanged  without  trial  in  the  streets 
and  market-pJaces.  At  Carnew  twenty- eight  i^ersons 
were  murdered  by  Orangemen  and  militia,  and  at 
Dunlevin  thirty  four  more  were  shot  without  judge  or 
jury. 

Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,  who  was  to  lead  the  in- 
surrection, was  seized  three  days  before  the  rising, 
on  May  23d,  and  died  of  his  wound.  In  the  des- 
perate struggle  tlia'  followed  the  Irish  peasantry, 
particularly  those  of  Wexford,  Wicklow,  and  Kildare, 
fought  with  a  heroism  that  struck  terror  into  the  dis- 
ciplined troops  of  England.  Of  the  leaders  avIio  took 
part  in  the  conflict  many  were  executed  and  the  rest 
banished  from  the  countrj^  Among  the  former  were 
Henry  Joy  McCrackcn,  Beauchamp  Bagenal  Harvej^ 
Matthew  Tone,  and  Bartholomew  Teeling.  Of  the 
latter,  the  most  noted  are  MacNevin,  Dr.  Samson,  and 
Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  who  settled  in  ]S"ew  York.  This 
war  was  distinguished,  like  all  former  ones  in  Ireland, 
by  frightful  atrocities  on  the  part  of  the  English.  In 
the  conflict  England  lost  over  twenty  thousand  soldiers, 
and  about  thirty  thousand  peasants  and  insurgents 
were  slain,  many  of  them  massacred  in  cold  blood. 

Ireland  now  lay  helpless  under  the  feet  of  England. 
The  question  of  uniting  the  two  countries  was  agitated, 
and  all  the  machinery  of  rhe  government  put  in  opera- 
tion to  effect  it.  It  was  deemed  necessary  to  get  an 
Irish  Parliament  to  sanction  the  *'Act  of  Union,"  so 


THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82.  97 

as  to  make  it  appear  before  the  world  as  the  act  of 
Irishmen  themselves.  When  Ihe  subject  of  "Union'' 
was  first  mentioned,  it  was  received  with  general  indig. 
nation;  and  weak  and  prostrate  as  Ireland  was,  and 
fornjidable  as  was  an  English  army  of  126,000  men, 
ready  to  be  precipitated  on  her  defenseless  population, 
yet  she  would  doubtless  have  taken  up  arms  rather  than 
sanction  it,  if  she  had  not  been  duped  by  false  promises. 
But  with  all  her  fair  pretensions,  England  could  not 
have  carried  the  Union  without  the  presence  of  her 
immense  military  force.  What  could  Ireland  do? 
Prostrate  from  a  sanguinary  struggle — laid  under 
martial  law — the  Habeas  Corjjus  Act  suspended — no 
protection  to  property,  libert}^,  or  life — the  jails  crowded 
with  innocent  victims — the  scaffold  red  with  the  blood 
of  those  who  had  committed  no  crime — tortures  and 
death  on  every  side, — what  could  she  do?  How  could 
she  discuss  the  Union  calmly,  with  more  than  100,000 
bayonets  bristling  around  her,  and  pointing  at  her 
heart?  Yet  under  all  this  formidable  and  merciless 
force,  efforts  were  made  to  prevent  the  unholy  alliance. 

A  meeting  was  called  in  Tipperary,  attended  by 
gentlemen  of  rank  and  fortune.  But  the  high  sheriff 
had  scarcely  taken  the  chair,  before  a  company  of  Eng- 
lish soldiers  marched  into  the  court  house,  and  dispersed 
the  assembly.  The  same  was  done  in  Maryborough. 
To  this  fear  of  physical  force  were  added  bribes  and 
corruption.  Rotten  boroughs  were  bought  up,  that 
those  favorable  to  the  English  interest  might  be  retui-ned 
to  the  legislature.  Lord  Castlereagh  dechu'ed  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  that  "he  would  carry  the  Union, 
though  it  might  cost  more  than  half  a  million  in  bribes.'* 
The  price  of  a  single  vote  on  the  question  was  £8.000, 
or  nearly  $40,000,  or,  in  its  place,  an  appointment  worth 
$10,000  per  annum.    More  than  $6,000,000  were  spent 


98 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


in  buying  up  close  rotten  boroughs  ;  $7,000,000  more  in 
bribes  ;  making  in  all,  in  round  numbers,  fourteen 
millions  of  dollars  distributed  to  effect  the  subjuga- 
tion of  Ireland.  Yet  with  her  100,000  bayonets  and 
$14,000,000,  there  were  707,000  who  petitioned  against 
the  Union,  and  only  5,000 for  it.  A  very  small  majority 
in  the  legislature  linally  secured  its  passage,  and  that, 
too,  when  among  those  styling  themselves  representa- 
tives of  the  people,  there  were  116  placemen  and  officers 
who  did  not  own  an  inch  of  land  in  Ir^-land. 

But  the  Act  of  Union"  passed.  In  the  language  of 
Mr.  Sampson, "  It  was  on  the  first  day  of  January,  1801, 
at  the-hour  of  noon,  that  the  imperial  united  standard 
mounted  on  the  Bedford  Tower,  in  Dublin  Castle,  and 
the  guns  of  the  roval  salute  battery  in  the  PhoDuix 
Park,  announced  to  weeping,  bleeding,  prostrate  Ire- 
land, that  her  independence  was  no  more,  and  that  her 
guilt-stained  Parliament  had  done  herself  to  death." 

•By  a  system  of  violence,  theft,  falsehood,  andcoiTJip- 
tion  unparalleled  in  the  history  of  civilized  na lions, 
Entrland  forced  Ireland  into  a  union  that  destroyed  her 
independence,  ruined  her  commerce,  exhausted  her 
wealth,  and  left  her  a  helpless  victim  at  the  feet  of  her 
spoiler.  This  charge  of  perfidy,  treachery,  and  infamous 
theft  against  the  English  government,  no  one  who  is  at 
all  acquainted  with  this  vilest  of  .England's  vile  trans- 
actions will  presume  to  deny.  Said  Lord  Plunket  at 
the  time : 

*'I  will  be  bold  to  say,  that  licentious  and  impious 
France,  in  all  the  unrestrained  excesses  that  anarchy 
and  atheism  liave  iriven  birth  to,  has  not  committed  a 
more  insidious  act  against  her  enemy,  than  is  now  at- 
tempted by  the  professed  champion  of  civilized  Europe 
against  Ireland — a  friend  and  ally  in  the  hour  of  her 
calamity  and  distress.    At  a  moment  when  our  country 


THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82. 


99 


is  filled  with  British  troops — when  the  Habeas  Corpus 
Act  is  suspended — whilst  trials  by  court-martial  are 
carrying  on  in  different  parts  of  the  kingdom — while 
the  people  are  made  to  believe  that  they  have  no  right 
to  meet  and  deliberate,  and  whilst  the  j)eople  are  palsied 
by  their  fears,  at  the  moment  when  we  are  distracted 
by  internal  dissensions — dissensions  kept  alive  as  the 
pretext  of  our  present  subjugation,  and  the  instrument 
of  our  future  thraldom — such  is  the  time  when  the 
Union  is  proposed." 

On  the  7th  of  June,  A.  D.  1800,  the  infamous  measure 
was  carried  by  a  majority  of  sixty-five  in  the  Commons 
and  fifty-nine  in  the  Lords.  On  the  2d  of  AugusX  fol- 
lowing it  received  the  approbation  of  the  King,  and  the 
Parliament  of  Ireland  ceased  to  exist. 

The  Rebellion  of  '98  and  the  ''Union"  were  fol- 
lowed by  Emmet's  rebellion,  which  partook  more  of  the 
chivalrous  than  the  real.  The  devoted  and  enthu- 
siastic Robert  Emmet  paid  the  penalty  of  his  patriot- 
ism on  the  scaffold.  He  said,  ''Till  Ireland  is  free  let 
not  my  epitaph  be  written;"  and  it  shall  not  be.  He 
offered  himself  up  as  a  holocaust  to  liberty.  He  shouted 
one  battle-cry  in  the  ears  of  his  countrymen  and  died. 
They  err  much,  who  suppose  he  accomplished  nothing. 
A  martyr  never  dies  in  vain.  Every  drop  of  his  blood 
will  yet  send  forth  a  living  man  fraught  with  the  fire 
of  his  origin.  The  name  of  Emmet  at  this  day  stirs 
every  patriot  heart  in  that  Green  Isle  like  the  blast  of 
a  trumpet.  His  dying  words  are  remembered  and  re- 
peated to  every  generation.  He  bequeathed  his  free 
spirit  to  his  country  in  sacred  trust,  looking  forward  to 
that  day  when  his  emancipated  nation  should  write  hi^> 
epitaph  and  honor  his  sacrifice.  The  fiag  of  freedom 
•Mhall  yet  wave  over  his  ashes,  and  the  shout  of  a 
ransomed  people  shake  the  earth  that  encloses  hini. 


100 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


After  tlie  Rebellion  of  '98  and  tlie  execution  of 
Emmet,  a  peace  reigned  in  Ireland,  but  it  was  the  sullen 
peace  of  despair  and  discontent.  It  is  true,  England  no 
longer  gave  a  bount}^  for  the  head  of  an  Irish  priest, 
but  she  rewarded  his  oppressors  on  a  grander  scale. 
The  estates  of  Irish  lords  are  not  confiscated,  and  the 
peasantry  shot  in  pastime;  but  are  not  her  soldiers  even 
now  quartered  upon  the  people— exciting  their  deadliest 
hatred,  and  fanning  the  coals  of  rebellion,  which  would 
bring  a  recurrence  of  those  calamities  ?  Her  bards  and 
songs  are  not  destroyed  as  formerly,  lest  they  should 
inspire  the  people  to  strike  again  for  liberty,  but  is  not 
the  freedom  of  the  press  restricted,  and  the  expression 
of  public  opinion  a  crime  to  be  punished  by  exile  or 
imprisonment?  Have  not  her  public  meetings  been 
scattered  by  ruthless  soldiery,  lest  her  champions 
might  speak  too  freely  of  the  abuses  which  have 
fired  her  people  to  deeds  of  blood,  and  maddened  them- 
with  a  thirst  for  revenge  ?  Bat  the  spirit  of  direct  op- 
position was  crushed  out  of  the  people,  and  secret 
societies  and  organizations  took  the  lAace  of  open  re- 
volt. 

The  effect  of  the  Union  was  to  increase  the  taxation 
of  Ireland,  to  enable  England  to  cripple  her  trade  and 
commerce,  and  to  drive  from  Ireland  the  capitalists  and 
landlords  who  enriched  her  capital  by  spending  their 
money  there,  but  who  now  spend  over  fifty  million 
dollars  a  year  of  the  rental  of  Ireland  in  England  and 
elsewhere. 

The  Catholic  Emancipation,  was  the  next  great 
question  that  agitated  the  minds  of  the  Irish  people, 
and  under  the  leadership  of  the  immortal  Daniel 
O'Connell  it  assumed  such  proportions  as  to  become  a 
menace  to  England.  In  1823  O'Connell  established  the 
Catholic  Association,  which  soon  embraced  In  its  ranks 


THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82. 


101 


the  hierarchj  and  X)riesthood  of  Ireland,  as  well  as  all 
men  of  liberal  ideas  and  religious  toleration.  In  1828 
he  was  elected  to  Parliament,  and  refused  to  take  the 
usual  anti-Catholic  oath,  because,  he  said:  ''Part  of 
it  I  know  10  be  false;  another  part  I  do  not  believe  to 
be  true." 

The  agitation  was  successful,  and  a  bill  for  the  eman- 
cipation of  Catholics  was  passed  both  by  the.  Lords 
and  Commons  and  approved  by  George  IV,,  April 
13th,  1829.  In  1830  George  died,  and  was  succeeded 
by  William  lY.  About  this  time  the  national  school 
system  was  introduced  and  tithes  were  nominalJy 
abolished,  but  in  reality  retained  under  the  name  of 
rent  charge. 

The  condition  of  the  poor  of  Ireland  became  yearly 
worse  since  the  Union;  there  was  no  trade,  no  commerce, 
no  industries,  by  which  the  people  could  make  a  living; 
English  laws,  aided  by  the  combination  of  English 
capital,  had  stamped  them  out,  thus  compelling  the 
people  to  rely  solely  on  the  land  for  their  living.  This 
caused  an  unnatural  competition  for  land,  of  which 
the  landlords  took  advantage,  and  year  after  year 
raised  the  rent  to  such  an  exorbitant  pitch  that  the 
unfortunate  tenants  were  unable  to  bear  the  pressure, 
and  poverty,  eviction,  and  starvation  were  the  con- 
sequence. The  Poor-law  Commission  of  1839  reported 
that  two  million  three  hundred  thousand  of  the  agricul- 
tural laborers  of  Ireland  were  paupers ;  that  those 
immediately  above  the  lowest  rank  were  the  worst-clad, 
worst-fed,  and  worst-lodged  i:)easantry  in  Europe. 

About  this  time  Father  Mathew,  one  of  the  most  re- 
markable men  of  modern  times,  began  his  crusade 
a<?:ainst  intemperance. 

In  1840  O'Connell  organized  the  Repeal  Association, 
for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  a  severance  of  the  union 


102 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESKNT. 


between  England  and  Ireland.  Soon  the  Repeal  agi- 
tation spread  over  Ireland,  and  Avas  well  sustained 
by  some  of  the  ablest  men  of  the  day,  including  several 
bishops  and  numerous  priests.  To  sustain  the  agita- 
tion the  people  paid  a  Repeal  rent,  which  at  one  time 
ran  up  as  high  as  to  average  £1,000,  or  8«>,000  per  week. 
He  held  meetings  in  different  j^arts  of  the  country. 
Men  Hocked  from  England  and  Scotland  to  attend 
these  meetings  and  to  hear  the  great  Liberator  speak. 
As  an  instance  of  the  numbers  attending  these  meet- 
ings, at  one  held  at  Clowes  there  were  fifty  thousand; 
at  Baltinglass,  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand;  at 
Charleville,  three  hundred  thousand;  at  Kilkenny, 
three  hundred  thousand;  at  Loughrea,  Thurles,  arid 
Cork,  five  hundred  thousand  each;  at  Lismore,  six 
hundred  thousand;  at  Mullaghmast,  eight  hundred 
thousand;  and  at  Tara,  one  million. 

The  government  became  alarmed  at  such  monster 
displays,  dismissed  all  Repealers  from  office,  deluged 
the  countr}^  with  troops,  forbade  the  meeting  at  Clon- 
tarf,  and  even  threatened  to  suppress  it  by  violence, 
and  finally  prosecuted  O'Connell  and  eiixht  of  his  asso- 
ciates,  who  were  called  the  "state  prisoners." 

By  packed  juries  and  other  means  at  which  English 
officials  are  such  experts,  they  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  favorable  verdict.  The  sentence  was  a  fine  of  £'2.000 
and  one  year's  imprisonment.  After  three  months  the 
sentence  was  reversed  by  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
O'Connell  was  released.  In  referring  to  the  manner  in 
which  the  trial  was  conducted.  Lord  Denman  said :  ''If 
such  practices  as  have  taken  place  in  the  present 
instance  in  Ireland  shall  continue,  trial  by  jury  will 
become  a  mockery,  a  delusion,  and  a  snare.'' 

The  manner  in  which  the  poor  of  Ireland  were  op- 
pressed, and  the  great  poverty  prevailing  among  them, 


THE  VOLUXTEEllS  OF  '82. 


103 


compelled  them  to  emigrate  to  other  countries.  At 
first  the  tide  of  emigration  set  in  for  Canada,  and  from 
the  year  1815  to  1839  as  many  as  three  hundred  and 
seventy-five  thousand  Irishmen  emigrated  to  Canada, 
By  the  official  census  of  1841  there  were  419,2i56  in  Eng- 
land and  Scotland,  and  within  tlie  ten  years  from  1839  to 
1849  as  many  as  428,000  more  arrived  in  Canada.  Many 
of  thj^se,  how^ever,  passed  on  to  the  United  States,  where 
in  addition  there  settled  490,000  between  the  years  1820 
and  1847,  Besides  these,  many  tliousands  also  went 
from  Ireland  to  settle  in  France,  Belgium,  Australia,  anl 
the  distant  colonies  of  the  British  Empire.  These  poor 
emigrants  were  the  pioneers  of  Catholicity  wherever 
they  went.  In  England,  in  Scotland,  in  Australia,  and 
chiefly  in  America,  they  have,  by  their  fervent  piety 
and  deep  religious  convictions,  planted  the  seed  of  the 
faith  in  fruitful  soil,  and  have  raised  innumerable 
churches  and  temples  to  the  worshij^,  the  honor,  and 
glory  of  God. 

After  O'Connell's  release  from  prison  he  commenced 
the  renewal  of  the  Repeal  agitation,  but  he  was  bitterly 
opposed  by  a  host  of  ardent  young  patriots,  who 
spurned  agitation  and  tame  submission,  and  whose 
appeal  was  to  the  genius  of  the  sword  and  the  arbitra- 
tion of  battle.  They  started  tlie  Young  Ireland  i:)art3% 
and  established  the  Dublin  Nation  as  their  organ.  Its 
ablest  writers  were  Charles  Gavin  Duff}^  John  Mitchel, 
and  Thomas  Davis.  They  were  brilliant  patriots,  and 
soon  poured  red-hot  shell  among  the  enemy.  The 
glowing  and  impassioned  Thomas  Francis  Meagher,  the 
silver-tongued  young  orator,  Richard  O' Gorman,  the 
staid  and  stately  William  S.  O'Brien,  the  fearless  Michael 
Doheny  and  John  Dillon,  and  the  poetical  inspiration 
of  D  Arcy  McGee,  Dalton  Williams,  Speranza,'' 
•'Eva^'    Edward  Walsh,   Kevin    O'Doherty,  John 


104 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Savage,  and  a  host  of  others  poetized  and  deified  the 
new  gospel  of  physical  force,  nntil  poor  O'Connell  saw 
himself  deserted  and  broken  down  in  Ijealth  and  spirits. 
He  went  on  a  visit  to  Rome,  but  died  on  the  way  at 
Genoa,  on  May  15th,  1847.  The  confederates  were  a 
brilliant  but  impracticable  lot  of  young  dreamers. 
They  kept  some  life  in  a  dying  country,  and  made  the 
most  of  the  horrible  famine,  accusing  England  of  first 
causing  it  by  unjust  laws,  and  then  aiding  it  to  ex- 
terminate the  i:>eoi^le.  In  all  this  they  were  not  far  out 
of  the  way.  But  while  they  were  waging  war  with  fiery 
tongue  and  burning  words  on  paper  against  England, 
they  were  doing  nothing  practically  to  prepare  for  the 
crisis  which  they  were  fast  precii^itating.  The  govern- 
ment had  transported  Mitchel  and  others,  and  when 
.Ireland  was  one  vast  garrison,  in  1848,  and  the  people 
dying  in  thousands  from  starvation,  they  suspended  the 
Habeas  Corpus  Act,  and  issued  warrants  for  the  arrest 
of  Smith  O'Brien,  Mengher^  Dillon,  0' Gorman,  and 
others. 

The  orator-patriots  were  not  prepared  for  this,  and 
had  hastilv  to  flv  from  Dublin  to  avoid  arrest.  They 
had  neitherarms,anmiunition,  money,  or  any  matured 
plan  to  carry  on  war.  Tl>ey  lied  to  different  parts  of 
the  country.  Smith  O'Brien,  Doheny,  Dillon,  Mc- 
Manus,  and  a  few  minor  leaders,  induced  b}^  Doheny, 
lied  to  Tipperary,  where  they  were  "joined  by  Thomas 
F.  Meagher,  James  Stephens,  and  others.  They  first 
went  to  Carrick-on  Suir,  where  the  j^easantry  rushed 
around  them,  as  also  John  O'Mahony  and  his  followers, 
armed  as  best  they  could.  Smith  O'Brien  told  them 
all  to  go  home  and  wait  a  little  longer,  until  the  crops 
would  be  ripe,  for  they  had  no  means  of  supporting 
them.  They  next  went  to  Cashel,  where  a  similar 
scene  occurred.    From  this  they  passed  on  to  the 


THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82, 


105 


Slievaraagh  Colliery  district,  where  the  peasants  rushed 
in  thousands  around  them.  Even  the  very  school-boys, 
the  cliildren  of  some  of  the  leading  men  of  that  section, 
including  the  Kickhams,  the  Mullalys,  the  Conyng- 
hams,  the  Fitzgeralds,  the  Powers,  the  Meaghers,  and 
others,  some  of  whom  subsequently  figured  in  the 
American  civil  war,  left  their  books  and  their  lessons 
and  rushed  to  join  the  patriot  band.  Alas,  their  young 
ardor  was  soon  cooled.  The  leaders  had  neither  the 
means  nor  the  disposition  to  make  war.  They  only 
wanted  to  keep  from  arrest  until  the  harvest  would 
ripen,  so  as  to  feed  an  army.  The  poor,  half-starved 
peasant,  as  he  wearily  toiled  home  in  obedience  to  the 
orders  he  received,  saw  the  rich  lands  and  parks  around 
him,  the  owners  of  wh,icli  had  fled  to  Dublin  or  England, 
studded  with  fat  sheep,  deer,  and  oxen;  and  yet  he 
should  wait  until  the  harvest  would  ripen  before'  he 
could  strike  for  life  and  liberty. 

Smith  O'Brien  rested  for  a  few  days  near  the  colliery, 
retaining  only  about  fifty  men  as  a  guard.  This  the 
authorities  knew  well,  and  made  preparations  to  arrest 
him.  Inspectors  Cox  and  Trant  marched  from  Callan 
to  Ballingarry,  with  over  one  hundred  men,  while  at 
the  same  time  Inspector  Monaghan,  with  eighty  men, 
started  from  Cjishel  to  join  them.  To  cooperate  with 
these  General  McDonald  marched  from  Thurles,  where 
he  had  arrived  by  train  from  Dublin,  with  about  five 
hundred  regulars. 

Smith  O'Brien  and  his  small  guard  lay  at  the  '^Com- 
mons," near  Ballingarr}^,  in  fancied  ^ecurit}^,  when 
word  reached  him  on  the  morning  of  the  29th  day  of 
July  that  a  large  body  of  police  was  marching  to  ar- 
rest them.  They  were  Trant' s  men  from  Callan.  The 
brave  colliers,  without  considering  the  result,  rushed 
to  attack  them.    The  police  had  passed  the  village  of 


106  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PP.ESEXT. 

Ballingarry.  Trant,  seeing  the  menacing  attitude  of  the 
peasantry,  who  were  collecting  around  him  from  all 
quarters,  and  not  hearing  from  Monaghan  or  the 
vsoldiers,  thought  it  well  to  fortify  himself  somewhere. 
Seeing  a  strong  stone  farm-house  near,  he  made  for  it. 
The  colliers,  seeing  the  move,  tried  to  intercept  him, 
and  with  that  intention  exchanged  shots.  Trant  took 
possession  of  the  house,  which  was  built  for  a  police 
barmcks  and  stood  on  the  toj)  of  a  hill,  and  from  it 
opened  fire  on  the  people,  which  they  returned  in  vain, 
for  it  would  tak<?  cannon  to  batter  down  that  house  -m 
the  top  of  Farrenrory  Hill.  This  has  been  sneeringly 
called  the  ''cabba2:e  garden'-  battle,  or  the  ''fiirlit  at 
Mrs.  McCormiclv  s  house.''  Here  about  one  hundred 
peasants,  with  a  few  guns  among  them  and  without 
cover  of  any  kind,  stood  the  fire  of  over  one  hundred 
policemen  well  under  cover.  While  this  unequal  con- 
flict went  on  for  some  time,  Monaghan's  force  ap- 
proached. The  men  left  before  the  house,  and  made 
an  attack  on  the  advancing  column  as  it  marched  along 
a  sunken  road,  hurling  stones  and  all  kinds  of  missiles 
at  them. 

The  people  were  collecting  from  all  sides,  and  it  looked 
as  if  the  police  would  have  to  succumb  in  the  end,  when 
the  approach  of  General  McDonald's  ti;oops  compelled 
the  colliers  and  peasants  to  sullenly  letire,  carrying 
w^ith  them  the  two  dead  men  and  the  wounded  of  their 
party.  Thus  ended  the  hopes  of  the  Young  Ireland 
party  and  the  battle  of  Farrenrory. 

The  famine  in  Ireland,  which  set  in  with  the  blight 
of  the  potato  crop  in  1846,  and  continued  for  nearly 
three  years,  was  one  of  the  most  frightful  that  ever 
afflicted  a  nation  or  people.  While  it  lasted  nearly 
one  million  persons  perished  from  actual  starvation, 
while  as  many  more  fled  the  country  in  terror.  In 


THE  VOLUNTEERS  OF  '82.  107 

'47  and  '48  so  prostrated  were  the  people  in  many  sec- 
tions of  the  conntr3%  that  they  were  unable  to  bury 
tlieir  dead,  whose  bodies  were  devoured  by  dogs  and 
beasts  of  prey.  In  some  cases  wliole  families  perished^ 
in  their  homes  of  hunger  alone,  and  the  houses  were 
set  fire  to,  in  order  to  consume  rlie  bodies  of  the  victims 
of  Irish  famine  caused  by  English  misrule. 

The  dying  wretches  lived  on  grass  and  herbage  of  all 
kinds  until  nature  gave  way  and  death  ended  their  pain. 
In  many  cases  the  living  babe  was  found  sucking  the 
dead  mothers  breast.  Even  in  the  poor-houses  so 
numerous  were  the  deaths  that  the  humane  authorities 
provided  coffins  with  spring  bottoms,  so  that  after  bring- 
ing the  remains  to  the  spot  they  could  dump  it  into  the 
hole  without  going  to  the  cost  of  a  coffin  to  cover  it. 
All  this  happened  in  Christian  Ireland,  under  the 
fostering  rule  of  England,  and  tliis  at  a  time  too  when 
the  warehouses  and  granaries  of  England  were  groan- 
ing with  corn  and  provisions,  and  while  the  landlords 
of  Ireland  were  daily  shipping  corn  and  fat  stock  to 
England.  In  fact,  the  ships  of  England,  laden  with 
corn  and  cattle  to  the  gunwale,  were  sailing  out  from 
the  ports  of  Ireland,  while  the  ships  of  the  world  were 
sailing  in  with  corn  and  provisions  for  tlie  relief  of  the 
starving.  In  1846  food  to  the  value  of  fifteen  million 
pounds  was  shipped  to  England,  and  in  1847,  the 
'^famine  year,"  the  produce  of  the  country  amounted 
to  £44,958,120,  an  amount  suflScient  to  feed  twice  the 
population  of  Ireland. 

While  England  remained  inactive,  the  Pacha  of 
Egypt,  the  Shah  of  Persia,  the  Emperor  of  China,  the 
Rajahs  of  India,  conspired  to  do  for  Ireland  what  her 
so-styled  rulers  refused  to  do.  America  did  more  in 
this  work  of  mercy  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world  put 
together. 


108 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


The  effect  of  the  famine  was  sad  in  every  way;  be- 
sides those  who  died,  tens  of  thousands  tied  in  horror 
from  the  country.  At  the  port  of  Liverpool  alone,  be 
tvveen  the  13th  of  January,  1847,  and  the  13th  of 
Decembei',  1848,  there  landed  290,231  persons  from 
Ireland.  Of  this  vast  number  about  130,000  emigrated 
to  the  United  States.  Hence,  in  this  way,  emigration 
from  Ireland  was  suddenlv  increased  to  105,000  in  184(3. 
to  215,000  in  1847,  to  254,000  in  1849,  to  249,000  in  1850, 
and  to  289,000  in  1851.  In  Canada  alone,  between  the 
8th  of  Mav  and  the  first  w^eek  in  June,  1847,  as  manv  as 
eighty-four  plague-stricken  ships  entered  the  St.  Law- 
rence, with  cargoes  of  poor  Irisli  emigrants.  After  the 
famine,  in  1851,  there  were  733,SCG  Irish  in  England  and 
Scotland,  and  within  the  ten  years  from  1847  to  1857 as 
many  as  1,298,603  landed  in  the  United  States.  The 
whole  emigration  from  Ireland  for  this  ej^ioch  amounted 
to  1.873,533  souls.  After  this  the  tide  of  emigration 
continued  to  flow  in  one  steady  stream,  and  from  1857 
to  the  present  time,  1882,  it.  is  caJoulated  that  over  one 
and'  a  half  million  Irish  arrived  in  the  United  States 
alone. 


TUE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


109 


CHAPTER  YIL 

THE   FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 

Organization  in  Ireland — Hie  Iris/i  Republic  in 
America — The  Arrests  in  1865 — Escape  of  James 
Stephens — The  Fiasco  of  1867 — The  Manchester 
Martyrs. 

For  the  past  seven  hundred  years,  the  history  of 
Ireland  is  but  a  record  of  one  long,  continuous  struggle 
of  her  people  against  English  rule  and  English  Op- 
pression. Not  a  single  generation  has  passed  away 
without  leaving  its  protest,  written  in  blood,  against 
the  cruel  tyranny  and  brutal  wrongs  perpetrated  by  the 
.  Saxon  robbers.  And  vet  all  the  loi-ce  of  the  British 
crown,  mercilessly  and  treacherously  exerted,  has 
failed  to  subdue  the  people  of  Ireland,  or  crush  out 
their  natural  love  of  liberty  and  longings  for  national 
independence. 

Of  all  the  organized  efforts  of  our  people  to  break  the 
British  yoke  and  raise  Ireland  to  the  position  of  a 
nation,  that  of  Fenianism,  perhaps,  was,  and  is  yet,  the 
most  formidable.  This  vast  confederation  of  the  Irish 
race,  as  it  may  justly  be  termed,  succeeded  for  a  time  in 
uniting  under  its  standard  nearl}'  all  the  organizations 
and  societies  which  existed  throughout  the  United 
Kingdom  for  revolutionary  purposes.  Fenianism  may 
be  said  to  have  sprung  into  life  when,  in  1858,  James 
Stephens  gathered  up  the  shattered  remnants  of  the 


110 


IKELAXD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Phoenix  Societ}',  and  brought  the  chief  spirits  of  the 
movement  under  his  control.  Many  of  these  daring 
rebels  afterwards  became  extensively  known,  and  have 
since  acquired  a  world-wide  reputation  for  their  long 
sufferings  in.  English  prisons  and  their  determined  op- 
position to  English  rule  in  Ireland.  The  organization 
over  which  Mr.  Stephens  presided  at  this  time  was 
known  as  the  ''Irish  Revolutionary  Brotherhood/'  and 
it  was  not  until  some  three  vears  later  that  the  title  of 
** Fenians''  became  popularly  known  in  Ireland.  This 
was  on  the  occasion  of  the  union  between  the  two 
sections,  that  in  Ireland  and  the  one  in  America  pre- 
sided over  by  John  O'Mahony,  to  which,  through  his 
love  of  Gaelic  tradition,  he  gave  the  title  of  Fenians," 
the  ancient  name  of  an  Irish  national  militia  which 
existed  in  the  second  centurv.  To  John  O'Mahonv, 
therefore,  is  due  the  credit  of  having  laid  the  founda- 
tion of  a  power  that  has  since  put  England  on  the 
defensive,  and  cost  her  millions  of  treasure  to  combat; 
a  power  which  is  still  striking  blow  after  blow  at  the 
structure  of  her  corrupt  and  demoralizing  system  of 
government  in  Ireland. 

In  3S63  a  convention  of  representatives  from  all 
branches  of  the  organization,  both  in  Ireland  and  the 
United  States,  was  held  in  Chicago,  on  which  occasion 
the  work  to  be  done  by  both  branches  was  mapped  out. 
The  Fenians  of  America,  it  was  understood,  would  aid 
the  men  in  Ireland  in  procuring  money,  arms,  munitions 
of  war,  and  would  also  send  over  officers  to  organize 
and  take  command  of  the  troops,  which  were  all  ready 
to  take  the  field  as  soon  as  the  necessary  means  could 
be  furnished.  Accordingly  the  work  went  on  steadily, 
each  branch  laboring  zealously  to  perform  its  part, 
until  the  close  of  the  American  war  gave  a  fresh  and 
powerful  impetus  to  the  movement.    Here,  it  seemed^ 


t:ie  feniax  :.iovkmknt. 


in 


was  the  grand  opportunity  for  wliich  Ireland  bad  been 
long  and  patiently  waiting.  Thousands  of  her  exiled  sons 
had  been  freed  from  their  obligations  to  their  adopted 
country,  many  of  them  having  acquired  a  national  di:5- 
tinction  for  bravery  and  military  skill,  and  were  now 
ready  and  anxious  to  exercise  both  in  the  causeof  their 
native  land.  It  was  conhdeiulv  hinted,  after  the  Union 
army  was  mustered  out  of  service,  that  the  movement 
in  Ireland  was  about  to  take  place  at  once,  and  many 
of  its  officers  lost  no  time  in  taking  passage  inunediately 
for  the  old  land.  Among  the  lirst  of  these  may  be 
mentioned:  General  William  G.  Halpin,  wLo  had 
served  with  distinction  in  the  Armv  of  the  Tennessee: 
General  Denis  F.  Burke,  who  had  commanded  the  Irish 
Brigade  daring  a  portion  of  the  war;  Colonel  Miciiael 
Kerwin,  who  had  commanded  a  brigade  of  cavalry 
under  Sheridan  and  under  Sherman  during  his  ''March 
from  the  sea";  General  F.  F.  Millen,  who  had  served 
in  the  Mexican  army;  Colonel  Quirk,  who  had  served 
in  the  Western  armv;  Lieutenant-Colonel  John  H. 
Gleason;  Majors  Moore,  Byron,  and  Bible;  Captain 
Thomas  J.  Kellv,  who  had  served  as  sio^ual  officer 
under  Sherman;  Captain  McCafferty,  of  the  Confederate 
army;  Captain  E.  Dogherty,  Assistant  Adjutant-General 
of  the  Second  Division,  Army  of  the  Potomac;  Captain 
James  Murphy;  Captains  Thomas  J.  Costello,  Moy- 
nalian,  and  Muliutll,  of  the  Irish  Brigade;  Captain  D.  J. 
Mykens,  Captain  Smyth,  of  the  Artillery;  Captain 
Underwood  O' Council;  Captain  Carioll,  of  the  cavalry 
corps;  Captain  P.  J.  Condon,  of  the  Irish  Brigade;  Cap- 
tains McDermott  and  O'Rourke;  Captain  O'Connor; 
Colonel  Denis  Dowling,  who  resi^^ned  his  position  in  the 
United  States  Army;  Captain  Daih%  Captain  Doheny, 
and  over  a  hundred  others  whose  names  must  be  col- 
lected by  the  future  historian. 


112  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

The  presence  of  so  many  strangers  in  the  country, 
all  giving  evidence  by  their  bearing  of  having  received 
military  training,  excited  unusual  alarm  among  the 
officials  of  the  Irish  executive,  and  this,  coupled  with  . 
another  significant  demonstration  which  took  place  some 
years  previously,  set  the  secret  machinery  of  the 
government  at  work  in  earnest  to  get  at  the  bottom 
of  the  conspiracy.  The  significant  demonstration 
referred  to  occurred  at  the  funeral  of  Terence  Bellew 
McManus,  who  escaped  from  Van  Diemen's  Land,  and 
settled  in  San  Fj*ancisco,  where  he  died  eaily  in  ISGl, 
and  in  the  latter  part  of  the  same  year  his  friends  had 
his  bodv  removed  and  transferred  for  interment  to 
Ireland.  A  large  delegation  from  the  United  States 
accompanied  the  body,  where  the  open  expression  of 
disloyalty  indulged  in  by  the  people  aroused  the  sus- 
picions of  the  crown  authorities,  and  from  that  time 
forth  watchful  detectives  were  set  on  the  track  of  all 
suspected  persons.  This  circumstance,  together  with 
the  bombastic  articles  which  appeared  in  the  columns 
of  the  Irish- American  new^spax'iers,  about  the  vast 
force  of  experienced  soldiers  being  thrown  into  Ireland, 
made  the  English  government  doubly  watchful.  The 
authorities  had  not  long  to  watch,  however;  they  were 
soon  in  possession  of  facts  sufficient  to  warrant  a  general 
attack  on  the  organization,  the  leaders  of  which  had 
been  for  a  long  time  well  know^n  to  them.  Accordingly 
a  privy  council  was  held  at  the  Castle  on  the  15tli 
of  September,  1805.  and  on  the  same  night  the  city  was 
startled  with  the  intelligence  that  The  Irish  People 
newspaper  was  seized,  and  that  everybody  connected 
with  it  was  in  the  hands  of  the  police.  The  excite- 
ment in  the  ranks  of  the  confederates  was  intense. 
No  one  seemed  to  know  the  full  extent  of  the  damage 
done  to  the  cause.    *'Is  Stephens  arrested?''  was  the 


■    THE  FEXIAN  MOVEMENT  113 

question  on  every  tongue,  and  it  was  not  until  the  fol- 
lowing morning  that  it  became  geneially  known  that 
he  was  still  at  large.  This  knowledge  tended  some- 
what to  allay  the  excitement  and  general  feeling  of 
desi3ondency,  which  for  the  moment  seemed  to  take 
posession  of  every  mind.  ^'As  long  as  the  'Boss'  is 
free,"  was  the  cry,  "the  fight  is  bound  to  take  place 
this  vear."  '         ■  '  '■ 

•  The  extent  of  the  seizure  was  soon  known,  and  it 
was  found  that  some  of  the  choicest  spirits  of  the 
movement  were  in  the  hands  of  the  police.  O' Donovan 
Eossa,  Thomas  Clarke Luby,  John  O'Leary,  William 
Roantree,  and  many  others,  w^ere  among  the  first 
victims  of  the  treacherous  work  of  the  perjured 
informer.  ^'Who  is  the  traitor^'  was  heard  whispered 
on  every  side,  and  a  vow  of  vengeance  was  uttered 
that  boded  no  good  to  the  wretch,  if  once  unmasked. 
.  On  the  night  of  the  arrests,  Mr.  Stephens  was  hold- 
ing a  reception  at  the  rooms  of  one  of  his  organizers- 
Mr.  Flood, — giving  instructions  to  a  number  of  the 
."  B's,"  or  centres,  who  were  calling  on  him  in  turn, 
when  the  news  of  the  capture  was  brought  to  him  by 
Mr.  O' Conner,  one  of  his  messengers.  Mr.  Stephens, 
on  receiving  the  information,  rushed  excitedly  into 
the  waitimr-room  with  the  news,  which  startled  everv 
one  present.  Among  them  was  Pierce  Nagle,  Stephens's 
trusted  and  confidential  man,  the  one  of  all  others  who 
knew  most  of  his  surroundings,  and  of  the  men  with 
whom  he  did  business.  This  devotee,  wdio  fawned  on 
his  master  with  cat-like  affection,  positive!}^  shed  tears 
when  the  news  w^as  communicated,  and  no  nian  present 
was  more  'bitter  in  his  denunciation  of  the  English 
tyrants  than  was  the  devotee  Pierce  Nagle.  A  few 
days  later,  when  the  prisoners  were  placed  before  the 
bar,  and  all  eyes  were  looking  for  the  man  who  was  to 


114 


IRELAIS'D, 


PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


swear  away  their  lives  and  liberty,  Pierce  Nagle  took 
the  witness-stand!  A  murmur  of  horror  went  through 
the  throng  in  the  court-room,  every  eye  flashed,  and 
every  hand  twitched,  there  were  a  hundred  men  within 
twenty  feet  of  the  wretch  that  day  who  could  and  who 
would  have  stilled  his  treacherous  heart  forever,  had 
they  been  free  from  the  restraint  of  a  superior 
•authority. 

01*  course  the  prisoners  were  all  convicted.  There 
could  be  no  hope  before  an  English  judge,  a  packed 
jury,  and  an  Irish  informer.  O' Donovan  Rossa  was 
sentenced  for  life,  O'Leary  and  Luby  twent\  years 
each,  Roantree  and  others  from  ten  to  fifteen  years 
each.  George  Hopper,  brother-in-law  of  Stephens, 
pleaded  guilty,  and  was  let  off  with  two  years'  con- 
iinement.  Meanwhile  the  search  continued  for  Mr. 
Stei)hens.  Until  he  was  in  the  hands  of  the  law,  the 
government  was  supposed  to  be  in  imminent  danger. 
Detectives  scoured  the  city,  handbills  offering  a  large  re- 
ward for  hi^  apprehension,  or  for  information  that  might 
lead  to  his  arrest,  w^re  posted  all  over  the  country, 
and  all  this  time  the  gentleman  so  much  dreaded  and 
so  diligently  sought  after,  was  quietly  taking  his  ease 
and  enjoying  himself  with  his  friends  in  a  comfortable 
dwelling  in  an  exposed  part  of  the  city,  near  Sandy - 
mount.  All  this  time  the  informer  and  confidential 
messenger,  Nagle,  who  had  so  suddenly  resigned  his 
])osition  in  the  service  of  the  Irish  Eepublic,  and  taken 
service  under  the  government  of  England,  permitted  the 
Castle  authorities  to  continue  their  laborious  and  fruit- 
less search,  when  at  any  moment  he  could  have  gone 
and  placed  his  slimy  hand  on  his  former  chief.  This 
is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  these  troubled  times  that 
must  remain  unsolved.  If  there  is  a  dark  side  to  it, 
perhaj)s  it  is  as  well  that  it  should  remain  unknown, 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


115 


until  all  the  actors  in  that  stirring  drama  shall  have 
passed  away 

A  Military  Council  was  now  formed  by  authority  of 
Mr.  Stejihens,  at  the  request  of  the  organization  in 
America,  which  it  was  intended  should  take  entire 
control  of  all  the  military  management  of  the  business  iij 
Ireland.  But  it  was  soon  discovered  that  the  C.  0. 1.  R. 
had  no  intention  of  allowing  any  power  or  authority 
to  pass  out  of  his  hands,  and  the  very  first  proposition 
the  Council  submitted — to  have  the  country  divided  into 
military  districts — was  vetoed  by  the  commander-in- 
chief.  The  reasons  he  assigned  for  refusing  his  consent 
to  this  plan  of  getting  the  people  under  military  dis- 
cipline, were  so  absurd  that  some  of  the  members  took 
occasion  to  express  their  opinions  in  a  way  which  was 
not  entirely  complimentary  to  the  C.  O.  I.  R.  This 
being  faithfully  reported  to  him,  he  was  evidently  con- 
vinced that. to  play  the  dictator  with  such  men  might 
endanger  his  standing  with  the  American  branch  of  the 
organization,  so  he  thereupon  called  a  council  of  all  the 
leaders  in  Ireland,  who  were  instructed  to  meet  him  in 
Dublin  on  a  certain  night,  for  the  imri:)ose  of  discussing 
plans  for  the  future.  He  also  requested  some  of  the 
officers  of  the  Council  to  prepare  plans  for  the  capture 
of  the  city  and  for  a  general  ''rising."  This,  it  was 
supposed,  would  keep  the  military  intruders  busy  for 
a  time,  and  allow  the  statesmen  to  prepare  their  plans 
for  a  prolonged  administration  of  the  Irish  Republic, 
virtually  established."  The  night  of  the  meeting 
arrived,  and,  as  the  expectation  of  a  fight  was  in  every 
body's  mind,  the  officers  had  their  plans  ready  for  the 
investigation  of  the.C.  O.  I.  R.  and  other  leaders  of  tli^^ 
movement  who  were  expected  jto  be  present. 

The  first  plan  submitted  was  for  the  capture  of  the 
city  of  Dublin,  and  as  that  was  the  principal  achieve- 


118 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


inent  to  be  gained,  the  plans  were  all  minutely  ex^ 
l^lained.  The  first  point  of  importance  to  be  taken  was 
the  Pigeon-house,  which  was  chieflv  valuable  on  account 
of  the  large  quantity  of  arms  and  military  stores  it 
contained.  It  was  garrisoned  by  one  hundred  and  sixty 
men  only,  sixty  of  whom  were  sworn  members  of  the 
organization  and  were  ready  to  obey  any  orders  they 
received  from  its  chief.  In  this  stronghold  were  stored 
twenty-five  thousand  stand  of  arms,  and  the  plan  pro- 
posed to  Mr.  Stephen  was  to  get  possession  of  these 
arms.    He  asked  the  ofiicer  : 

"How  many  men  do  you  require  to  carry  out  the 
plan?" 

"One  thousand  men,"  was  the  reply. 

"Well,  I  can  give  you  six  thousand,  if  necessary. 
Now,  let  us  hear  what  you  propose  doing." 

"AVell,  I  propose  to  take  two  hundred  picked  men, 
armed  with  revolvers,  dispose  of  them  at  points  already 
selected  adjacent  to  the  garrison.  At  a  prearranged 
signal  from  our  friends  inside,  they  will  march  in,  take 
possession  of  the  pl^ce,  make  prisoners  of  the  enemy, 
and  shoot  those  who  resist.  I  will  then  have  eight 
hundred  good  men,  well  organized  and  under  command 
of  competent  officers,  already  under  orders  to  assemble 
at  a  given  time  in  the  vicinity,  into  whose  hands  I  will 
put  the  arms  taken  from  the  garrison,  and  this  force 
will  guard  the  wagons  already  provided  to  convey  the 
arms  and  ammunition  to  Phoenix  Park." 

"And  what  will  you  do  with  theun  then?" 

"This:  On  the  day  previous  you  will  have  twenty 
thousand  men  ordered  \\^  from  the  country  districts, 
for  active  service.  The  Exhibition  is  in  progress  at 
present,  ^nd  every  day  excursion  trains  bring  to  the 
city  from  ten  to  thirty  thousand  people  to  visit  it,  so 
the  arrival  of  our  friends  will  excite  no  unusual  suspi- 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


117 


don.  You  will  order  these  men  to  assemble  in  the  Park, 
and,  inside  of  six  hours  after  the  capture  of  the  Pigeon- 
house,  we  can  march  out  of  Dublin  with  an  army  of 
twenty  or  twenty-five  thousand  men.  I  will  pledge 
my  life  to  carry  out  this  much  of  the  plan,  and  after 
that  you  may  issue  such  orders  as  you  think  proper;  I 
will  stand  in  nobody's  way." 

This  plan  was  received  with  favor  by  all  present. 
Some  of  the  leaders  from  the  coantrv  districts  were 
enthusiastic  over  it.  All  the  officers  who  were  consulted 
approved  heartily  of  it.  The  only  difference  of  ox^inion 
was  as  to  the  number  of  men  asked  for  to  carry  out 
the  enterprise.  But  it  was  clearly  shown  that  a  greater 
number  of  men  would  be  simply  in  the  way,  and  as 
everything  depended  on  jDrompt  and  secret  action,  it 
was  conceded  that  the  force  named  was  ample  to  do  the 
work.  Mr.  Stephens  seemed  disinclined  to  express  an 
opinion.  But  it  soon  became  manifest  that  he  was  not 
in  favor  of  the  plan,  as  it  was  likely  to  interfere  with 
one  of  his  own,  which  he  very  soon  uncovered  in  his 
conversation  with  the  ''centres."  The  questions  he 
put  fully  developed  his  object,  which  was  to  i^ostpoiie 
the  fight.  He  asked  the  representatives,  "If,  incase  of 
a  postponement,  they  could  hold  their  forces  together 
for  three  months  longer,  could  they  but  be  assured 
that,  Avhere  the}^  had  but  one  rifie  now,  at  the  ex- 
piration of  that  time  they  would  have  three  ?"  This 
was  not  a  fair  question;  the  men  had  been  summoned 
to  Dublin  to  consult  about  the  best  way  of  preparing 
,  for  a  fight,  and  now  they  were  being  used  simply  to 
justify  Mr.  Stephens's  back-out.  This  view  of  the 
matter  was  intimated  in  a  mild  way  by  one  of  the 
officers  of  the  Council.  But  Mr  Stephens  resented  the 
insinuation  very  indignantl3^ 

The  result  of  the  conference,  therefore,  as  might  easih^ 


118 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


be  foreseen,  was  to  put  off  the  fight  for  three  months 
longer.  Disappointment  could  be  traced  in  every  face, 
indignation  and  resentment  on  many,  and  more  than 
one  brave,  strong  man  left  the  room  in  tears.  It  was 
plain  to  a  close  observer  that  on  that  October  night  in 
the  city  of  Dublin,  the  C.  O.  L  R.  planted  the  first 
c:erm  of  mistrust  in  the  minds  of  his  hitherto  devoted 
followers. 

Some  time  previously',  John  Mitchel,  who  had  been 
released  from  iuiprisonment  by  the  United  States 
government  as  a  compliment  to  the  Irish-American 
officers  of  the  army,  was  sent  to  Paris  as  financial 
agent  for  the  American  organization,  and  an  officer 
from  Ireland  went  over  to  receive  the  money  which 
had  been  deposited  iu  his  hands  for  the  purchase  of 
arms.  The  amount  proved  to  be  entirely  inadequate 
for  the  purpose,  and  besides,  the  condition  which  Mr. 
Mitchel  felt  it  his  dut}'  to  impose  before  surrendering 
it  gave  great  offence  to  Mr.  Stephens.  In  the  mean- 
time an  officer  had  beeu  sent  from  the  United  States  to 
negotiate  for  the  purchase  of  arms,  and  had  already 
commenced  operations  in  England.  Some  three  thou- 
sand rifles  and  about  four  hundred  revolvers  had  up  to 
this  time  found  their  way  into  Dublin.  The  want 
of  arms  was  now  felt  to  be  the  great  drawback;  and  the 
complaint  was  universally  heard,  Why  are  we  waiting 
for  money  to  buy  them,  when  we  could  have  had  all 
we  wanted  sim.ply  for  the  taking?" 

The  work  dragged  slowly  on,  the  detectives  and 
police  alone  being  kept  busy.  Day  after  day  the 
most  prominent  men  in  the  movement  Avere  picked  up 
and  thrown  into  prison.  It  was  now  seriously  con- 
templated by  some  of  the  members  of  the  Council  to 
force  Mr.  Stephens  to  decide  upon  some  definite  plan 
of  action,  and  in  case  of  his  refusal,  to  retire  from  all 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


119 


further  responsibility  in  what  appeared  to  be  his 
aimless  cons2)iracy.  This  move  on  the  part  of  the 
Council  was  prevented  by  the  arrival  of  an  envoy  from 
America,  who  had  been  sent  out  some  time  before 
with  "documents."  The  intelligence  which  the  officer 
brought  back  was  of  the  most  startling  character.  The 
Council  was  immediately  convened,  and  jjlaced  under 
the  most  solemn  obligations  of  secrecy  before  tlie  great 
state  secret  could  be  imparted.  It  turned  out  to  be  a 
direct  pledge  from  Andrew  Johns'on,  President  of  the 
United  States  of  America,  "that  inside  of  six  months 
England  and  the  United  States  would  be  at  war."  This 
was  indeed  an  important  messnge,  but  where  the  infor- 
mation came  from,  or  who  originated  it,  has  never  since 
transpired.  Certain  it  is,  however,  that  there  were  more 
acquainted  with  the  secret  than  the  Militar}^  Council, 
for  it  was  found  to  be  a  matter  of  common  rumor 
around  the  hotels  in  Dublin  within  an  hour  after  its 
disclosure  by  the  envoy.  There  was  nothing  contained 
in  the  message  that  at  the  time  appeared  improbable  to 
the  American  officers,  many  of  whom  knew  the  bitter 
.  feeling  that  existed  against  England  before  they  left 
America.  They  knew  well  the  part  which  England  had 
borne  against  the  government  of  the  United  States 
during  the  civil  war.  They  knew  that  on  every  battle- 
field of  the  South  was  found  beside  the  fallen  Confede- 
rate a  rifle,  a  sabre,  or  a  revolver  stamped  with  the 
British  crown.  They  knew  that  rebel  ships  were  built, 
armed,  and  manned  by  Englishmen  to  destroy  American 
commerce,  thev  saw  the  crews  of  these  ships — who 
had  been  adjudged  pirates  according  to  all  the  usages 
of  international  law— disbanded  in  English  ports  against 
the  official  protest  of  the  United  States  minister,  and 
allowed  to  go  free.  They  knew  that  British  emis- 
saries invaded  American  territory,  robbed  American 


120  IKELAI^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

banks,  and  murdered  American  citizens.  And  witli  all 
this  knowledge,  and  knowing  the  spirit  of  retaliation 
which  burned  in  the  heart  of  every  disbanded  soldier 
of  the  American  Union,  they  thought  it  not  improbable 
tliat  war  would  come.  But  they  were  mistaken.  This 
news,  however,  inspired  fresh  hope  in  the  hearts  of  all, 
and  it  was  resolved  to  wait  awhile  longer. 

There  were  great  things  in  store  for  the  future,  so  it 
Avas  mysteriously  hinted  at  in  all  the  communications 
of  the  C.  O.  I.  R.  His  prediciions  were  soon  to  be 
verified,  but  not  exactly  in  the  way  he  wished  them  to 
be  understood. 

On  Saturday,  the  11th  of  jN'ovember,  1865,  the  city  of 
Dublin  was  electrified  w^ith  the  cry,  "Stephens  is  ar- 
rested! Stephens  is  arrested'/'  It  was  soon  found  to 
be  true.  Whether  the  informer  Nagle  had  at  length 
concluded  to  deliver  up  his  chief,  or  whether  owing  to 
the  skill  of  the  detective  force  his  j)lace  of  residence 
had  been  discovered,  has  never  been  known.  Fairfield 
House  at  Sandymount,  where  Stephens  resided  under 
the  assumed  name  of  Herbert,  was  surrounded  on  Satur- 
day morning,  just  before  daylight,  by  the  whole  of  the 
G.  Division  of  Police,  guided  by  the  notorious  Dawson, 
the  Dublin  detective.  The  fences  were  immediately 
scaled  and  an  entrance  effected  through  the  back  door. 
No  resistance  was  offered,  though  all  the  inmates  slept 
with  revolvers  under  their  pillows.  Stephens  was  first 
taken  into  custody,  and  then  followed  the  arrest  ol 
Charles  J.  Kickham,  Hugh  Brophy,  and  Edward  Dufiy. 
A  large  sum  of  money,  amounting  to  nearly  two  thou- 
sand pounds,  together  with  a  plentiful  supply  of 
groceries  and  wines,  were  found  in  the  house  This 
coup  d^etat^  it  was  surmised  by  the  crown  authorities, 
w^ould  end  the  struggle.  But  their  surmises  w^ere 
doomed  to  disappointment.    A  meeting  of  the  Council 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT.  121 

was  at  once  ordered  and  steps  taken  to  '^fill  up  the 
r;;ap/'    This  was  one  of  .Mr.  Stephens's  great  boasts, 
that,  no  matter  how  many  men  might  be  removed  there 
were  others  to  step  in  and  take  their  places.  Acting 
in  this  spirit,  the  Council  organized  a  Provisional  Direc 
troy,  and  wrote  a  very  courteous  letter  to  Mrs.  Stephens, 
expressive  of  sympathy,  and  asking  her  to  transfer  to 
the  Council  any  documents  that  might  be  of  use,  and 
•whatever  money  she  had  on  hand  belonging  to  the  pub- 
lic fnnd.    No  reply  was  received  to  this  letter,  but 
soon,  through  the  medium  of  friends  employed  m  Rich 
mond  Bridewell,  a  correspondence  was  opened  with 
Mr.  Stei3hens.  The  first  use  he  made  of  this  established 
line  of  communication  was  to  send  out  a  letter  contain 
ing  a  peremptory  order  banishing  the  President  of  the 
Council  from  the  country.    This  was  a  damper  on  the 
zeal  of  the  Council.    They  were  soon  made  to  realize 
that  the  ''filling  up  the  gap'  theory  had  no  reference 
to  the  C.  O.  1.  R.    'No  man  on  earth  could  ''fill  the 
gap"  caused  by  his  removal!    When  pressed  to  give  a 
reason  for  this  outrageous  action,  he  cooll}^  stated  that  ^ 
the  President  had  sent  an  impertinent  letter  to  his  wife. 
Tiien  he  should  have  transporied  all  the  members  of 
the  Council,  for  every  man  was  equally  responsible  for 
the  impertinent  letter  referred  to  above. 

Steps  were  then  taken  to  accomplish  Mr.  Stephens's 
escape  from  prison,  and  once  commenced  i»t  did  not 
take  long  to  make  all  the  necessary  arrangments.  The 
first  man  approached  was  Daniel  Byrne,  a  warder  in 
the  j)rison,  and  through  him  other  friends  of  the  move- 
ment inside  were  soon  enlisted  in  the  work.  Duplicate 
keys  were  procured,  and  ere  the  end  of  the  week 
Richmond  Bridewell,  one  of  the  strongest  j)risons  in 
Ireland,  was  virtually  in  the  hands  of  the  Fenians.  On 
the  night  of  the  24th  of  November,  only  two  weeks 


122 


Ireland;  PAST  and  present. 


after  his  arrest,  the  j)lans  were  put  into  execution,  and 
on  the  25 th,  the  day  following,  the  city  was  doubly 
electrified  with  the  startling  cry,  "Stephens  has  es- 
caped! Stephens  has  escaped!''  A  look  of  confusion,  . 
bordering  on  horror,  was  on  the  face  of  .every  official  of 
the  government.  One  of  their  strongest  bastiles  had 
been  invaded,  and  the  cliief  conspirator  against  cbe 
peace  of  her  Majesty's  realm  actually  carried  off  from 
under  their  very  noses  !  Let  it  be  here  recorded,  to 
the  honor  of  the  prison  officers  engaged  in  this  daring 
enterprise,  that  they  declined  to  accept  every  offer  of 
money,  or  to  fly  from  the  country  to  save  themselves 
from  prosecution.  So  well  was  the  affair  conducted, 
however,  that  not  a  single  particle  of  evidence  could  be 
brought  against  any  of  them,  and  in  their  own  good 
time  they  quietly  emigrated  to  the  United  States.  The 
governor  of  the  prison,  Mr  Marquis,  was  dismissed,  but 
he  was  entirely  innocent  of  any  complicity  in  the  escape 
of  Mr.  Stephens. 

Once  more  the  indispensable  C.  O.  E,.  I.  took  up  his 
position  in  "the  gap,  '  and  with  a  great  flourish  of 
trumpets  declared  that  the  year  1865  should  be  the  year 
of  fight.  In  fact,  he  had  gone  so  far  as  to  exact  a 
pledge  from  the  Council  before  leaving  prison,  that  the 
fight  should  take  place.  On  no  other  conditions  would 
he  consent  to  come  out.  Time  and  again,  during  the 
months  that  followed,  he  was  urged  by  the  officers  to 
permit  them  to  commence  active  military  organization, 
and  as  often  refused.  The  year  of  fight  passed^  and 
nearly  two  months  of  the  one  that  followed.  And  still 
the  C.  0.  I.  R.  remained  in  a  state  of  stupor.  At 
length  the  Council  determined  to  force  him  to  an  issue, 
or  retire  from  any  further  connection  with  him,  and  re- 
turn to  America. 

The  last  meeting  of  the  Military  Council  was  held  on 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


123 


Friday  night,  the  16th  of  February,  1866,  at  which  Mr 
Stephens's  aimless  policy  was  the  chief  subject  of  dis- 
cussion. Grave  suspicions  were  beginning  to  enter  the 
minds  of  the  officers  that  he  had  no  intention  to  lif^ht, 
and  that  they  had  no  business  to  be  in  Ireland  at  all. 
No  definite  conclusion  was  arrived  at  on  that  night, 
but  it  was  quite  evident  from  the  temper  of  the  Council 
that  ere  long  the  C.  O.  I.  It.  would  be  left  in  quiet  * 
X")osession  of  the  Irish  Republic.  In  the  meantime, 
however,  the  British  authorities  had  been  preparing  to 
bring  about  this  end  in  a  way  x^eculiarly  their  own. 

On  Saturday  morning,  February  17th,  the  whole  po- 
lice force  of  Dublin  was  set  in  motion,  and  before  noon 
nearly  every  American  officer  in  the  city  found  himself 
the  inmate  of  a  police-station.  That  night  the  gloomy 
w^alls  of  Kilmainham  enclosed  over  two  hundred  of  the 
principal  leaders   of   the   Fenian   movement.  The 

Habeas  Corpus  Suspension  Act,"  under  the  authority 
of  which  these  arrests  were  made  by  the  government, 
had  not  yet  become  a  law.  It  was  not  until  the  follow- 
ing day — Sunday — that  it  was  signed.  But  v\^hen  did 
England  ever  regard  the  law,  in  her  dealings  with  Ire-  ^ 
land  or  Irishmen?  Meanwhile  these  wholesale  arrests 
continued,  until  the  prisons  ol  Ireland  were  thronged 
with  "suspects."  The  minions  of  the  Castle  were  now 
in  their  glory.  They  had  in  their  power  a  class  of  men 
whom  they  delighted  to  insult  and  persecute.  From  the 
lowest  prison  scullion  up  to  the  pompous  British  officer 
on  guard  in  the  jails,  these  petty  insults  were  made  a 
part  of  their  daily  duty.  The  officers  of  the  "crack" 
Kities,  lately  celebrated  for  their  cowardly  flight  before 
a  little  band  of  Egyptian  cavalry,  were  most  persistent 
in  their  insulting  remarks,  particularly  to  the  American 
officers,  while  engaged  at  exercise  in  the  prison  yards. 
The  governor  of  Kilmainham,  Price  by  name,  but 


124  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

aptly  designated  tlie  "Gorilla,"  was  another,  whose 
brutal  behavior  shocked  every  sense  of  decency  and 
common  humanity.  The  demeanor  of  the  victims  of  all 
these  persecutions  merits  the  noblest  expression  of 
praise,  and  will  stand  as  a  shining  exam})le  of  xmtient 
endurance  and  devotion  to  the  cause  of  Ireland.  Xo 
people  on  the  earth  can  show  a  more  devoted  band  of 
patriots  than  tliose  who  filled  English  prisons  from  the 
first  capture  of  the  Irish  People^  to  the  murder  of 
Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien  by  the  English  govern- 
ment. 

A  short  time  after  the  February  arrests,  Mr.  Stephens, 
wdio  had  been  concealed  in  the  house  of  a  Mrs.  Butler 
of  Summer  Hill,  took  his  departure  in  oi)en  daylight 
from  the  city,  gained  the  coast,  where  a  vessel  was  in 
waiting,  which  conveyed  him  to  France,  where  he  re- 
mained for  some  months  before  going  to  the  United 
States.  Thus  vanished  from  the  scene  the  "Central 
Organizer  of  the  Irish  Republic,'*  a  man,  it  is  true,  who 
built  up  the  most  powerful  organization  that  ever  ex- 
isted in  Ireland  for  armed  revolution;  but  a  man,  never- 
,  theless,  who  contributed  more  than  all  others  to 
demoralize  and  render  impotent  the  power  he  had  • 
created.  James  Stephens  was  an  organizer  and  a 
natural-born  cons2:)irator,  as  prompt  to  conspire  against 
the  friends  of  the  cause,  when  they  crossed  his 
path,  as  he  was  against  its  enemies.  Had  he  been  a 
patriot  as  well,  he  would  liave  stepped  aside  v.iien  liis 
work  was  done,  and  permitted  other  hands  and  other  \ 
heads  to  guide  the  great  machinery  which  he  had  con- 
striicted,  and  which  he  lacked  the  moral  courage  to  puii 
in  motion. 

His  long  concealment  in  Dublin,  after  his  escape  irom 
prison,  furnishes  another  evidence  of  Irish  hdelity^ 
Notwithstanding  the  large  amount  of  money  offered  bjf 


THE  FENIAN  :.IOVEMENT. 


125 


the  government  as  a  reward  for  his  capture,  the  lady  in 
whose  house  he  lived,  tlioughin  humble  circumstances, 
and  who  could  by  a  single  word  become  wealthy,  re- 
mained true  to  her  x^lighted  word.  Ireland  hasher 
Nagles  and  Corydons,  but  they  are  as  a  drop  in  the 
ocean  to  the  great  mass  of  the  brave  and  loyal  jieoj^le 
who  love  Ireland  more  than  life  itself. 

Every  day  the  Fenian  trials  went  on  before  the 
modern  Norbur}^,"  Judge  Keogh,  and  a  packed  jury, 
and  of  course  to  be  brought  before  such  a  tribunal  was 
equivalent  to  certain  conviction.  In  the  meantime  a 
correspondence  bad  been  opened  by  the  American 
officers  with  the  American  minister  in  London,  Mr. 
Adams,  and  the  American  consul  in  Dublin,  Mr.  West, 
with  a  view  to  having  a  demand  made  by  their  govern- 
ment ior  their  liberation.  But  it  was  soon  discovered 
that  both  these  gentlemen  were  more  desirous  of  pre 
venting  any  such  action  on  the  j)art  of  the  United 
States  than  otherwise.  This  occasioned  widespread  in- 
dignation among  the  officers  and  their  friends  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic,  and  communications  weresenc  bv 
some  of  them  direct  to  Mr.  Seward,  then  Secretary  of 
State.  It  was  finally  concluded  by  the  British  authori 
ties  to  release  the  Irish-Americans  on  condition  that 
they  would  at  once  leave  tlie  country,  a  proposition 
which  they  indignantly  declined.  Meanwhile  the 
diplomatic  fencing  went  on,  until  the  position  the 
Irish-Americans  occupied  between  the  two  countries  was 
clearly  defined.  England  claimed  the  inalienable  right, 
"once  a  subject,  always  a  subject,^'  and  "  that  notwith- 
standing any  occupation  these  men  might  have  pursued  , 
in  the  United  States,  they  were  still  held  to  be  subjects 
of  her  Majesty  .the  Queen.*'  Nevertheless,  the  Queen 
was  anxious  to  get  them  out  of  her  dominions,  and  her 
faithful  hirelings  in  Ireland  rendered  valuable  service, 


i 


126  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

or  tlionglit  they  did,  in  carrying  out  her  wishes.  IsTiglitly 
visits  were  made  to  the  prison  in  which  the  officers  were 
confined,  by  the  Castle  officials,  who  used  all  the 
sophistry  and  blarney  of  which  they  were  masters — and 
that  was  not  a  little — to  induce  the  American  officers 
to  return  home.  Chief  among  these  nightly  visitors 
was  a  Mr.  Murray,  a  Castle  Commissioner,  and  Mr. 
Burive,  Under-Secretary  or  something  to  his  Excel- 
lency the  Lord-Lieutenant.  To  an  uninitiated  person, 
listening  to  the  conversation  which  took  place  on  the 
occasion  of  these  visits,  between  the  servants  of  the 
Queen  and  the  foreign  invaders^  it  would  appear  that 
the  official  was  the  real  simon-X)ure  patriot,  the  real 
lover  of  Ireland,  and  that  his  heart  was  full  to  over- 
flowing with  genuine  love  and  sympathy  for  the  mis- 
guided Americans,  who  were  but  the  victims  of  a  few 
bloodthirsty  conspirators,  plotting  for  the  murder  of 
priests  and  all  the  respectable  people  of  the  country. 
In  fact,  so  offensive  was  this  man  Murrav,  one  nisrht, 
that  General  Denis  F.  Burke  ordered  him  out  of  his 
cell,  and  forbade  him  ever  entering  it  again  as  long  as 
he  occupied  it. 

Kearlv  all  the  links  of  communication  between  the 
several  districts  in  Ireland  had  now  been  broken.  The 
C  O.  L  R.  had  left  in  "the  gap-'  occasioned  by  his 
flight  from  the  soil  on  which  he  had  sworn  to  flght, 
Edward  Duffy,  a  man  too  honest  to  dissemble  and  too 
weak  to  command.  The  organization  in  America,  too, 
had  been  divided.  John  O'Mahony  had  already  been 
deposed  by  the  Fenian  Senate,  and  William  R.  Roberts, 
of  New  York,  elected  to  fill  his  j^lace.  This  branch  of 
the  Fenian  movement,  bv  this  time  heartilv  distrusted 
with  the  procrastination  of  Mr.  Stephens,  determined 
to  strike  England  through  her  possessions  in  Canada, 
and  at  once  a  movement  was  commenced  in  the  direc- 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


127 


tion  of  the  Canadian  border.  By  the  31st  of  May,  1866, 
a  considerable  force  had  assembled  on  the  frontier,  and 
many  of  them  crossed  over  lo  the  Canadian  side.  On 
the  2d  of  June  a  well-organized  force,  under  command 
of  General  O'Neill,  met  the  Canadian  forces — among 
them  the  "  Queen's  Own,' '  —which  had  been  ordered  out 
to  meet  the  Fenians,  aud  a  spirited  light  began,  which 
resulted  in  the  defeat  and  total  rout  of  the  British. 
In  consequence  of  not  being  promptly  supported,  how- 
ever, the  troops  under  O'Neill  were  forced  to  retire, 
and  a  number  of  the  Fenians  were  capture^,  who  were 
afterwards  tried  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged.  Among 
these  latter  was  the  Rev.  Father  John  McMahon.  But 
the  sentences  were  finally  commuted  to  imprisonment. 
On  the  7th  of  June  a  proclamation  was  issued  by  Presi- 
dent Johnson  against  the  Fenian  invasion  of  Canada, 
and  under  the  direction  of  General  Meade,  the  whole 
movement  was  soon  effectually  broken  up. 

A  few  weeks  previous  to  this  time  James  Stephens 
had  arrived  in  New  York  from  Paris,  and  succeeded  in 
partially  reinstating  himself  as  head  of  what  was 
termed  the  I.  R.  B.  branch  of  the  Feniaii  forces.  His 
former  unredeemed  pledges,  together  with  his  despotic 
tendency  to  override  the  opinions  of  others,  prevented 
him,  however,  from  making  much  headway,  until  the 
arrival  in  the  following  August  of  many  of  the  Ameri- 
can officers,  who  had  succeeded  in  obtaining  their 
liberation  from  prison  in  Ireland,  gave  the  movement 
new  life. 

A  public  meeting  was  called  to  be  held  at  Jones' 
Wood,  which  was  one  of  the  largest  meetings  of  Irish - 
Americans  ever  held  in  the  country.  Before  this  im- 
mense assemblage  of  people,  Mr.  Stephens  solemnly 
swore  that  ere  the  end  of  the  present  year  he  would  be 
on  Irish  soil,  fighting  for  Ireland's  independence.  This 


128 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PHESEKT. 


avowal  appeared  so  glaringlj'  in  { ossible  to  those  wlio 
had  a  full  knowledge  of  the  resources  at  his  command, 
that  many  of  them  retired  from  the  movement  in  dis- 
gust. During  the  following  November  Colonel  Thomas 
J.  Kelly,  w^ho  had  by  this  time  entirely  supplanted 
Mr.  Stephens  in  the  control  of  the  movement,  prepared 
for  the  departure  of  himself  and  followers  for  Ireland. 
A  steamer,  which  had  been  purchased  during  the  pros- 
perous times  for  forty  thousand  dollars,  was  sold  for 
tifreen  thousand.  With  this  iDaltry  sum  in  the  Fenian 
treasury,  with  the  organization  in  Ireland  in  a  neces- 
sarily demoralized  condition,  with  the  British  govern- 
ment in  full  possession  of  all  the  plans  and  secrets  of 
the  organization,  both  in  Ireland  and  America,  this 
little  liandful  of  men— many  of  them,  it  is  true,  of  the 
purest  type  of  patriotism— sailed  on  what  a  moment's 
reflection  would  have  shown  them  was  but  a  forlorn 
hope.  Mr.  Stephens  did  not  accompany  them  to  light 
on  Irish  soil,  although  his  passage  had  been  provided 
for.    He  sailed  for  France  shortly  after. 

On  the  arrival  of  Kelly  and  his  party  in  Ireland  a 
secret  councif  was  held,  and  the  12th  of  February",  1867, 
was  ajipointed  for  the  "rising,"  but  for  some  reason 
or  other  a  subsequent  order  was  issued  postponing  the 
day  of  action  to  the  5tli  of  March.  This  order  oc- 
casioned disastrous  results,  as  it  had  not  been  sent 
out  in  time  to  reach  the  leaders  at  the  several  points, 
some  of  whom  took  the  field  in  obedience  to  the  flrst 
order.  The  most  serious  mistake  occurred  at  Chester, 
England,  where  the  centres  had  been  under  orders  to 
commence  an  attack  on  Chester  Castle  simultaneously 
with  their  brothers  in  Ireland.  This  plan  was  faith- 
fully adhered  to,  and  in  a  most  daring  manner*  The 
Castle  was  supx)osed  to  contain  some  twenty  thousand 
stand  of  arms,  and  the  intention  w^as  to  capture  the 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


129 


arms,  take  possession  of  all  the  rolling  stock  on  the 
railroad,  put  the  arms  and  ammunition  on  board,  dash 
for  Holyhead,  capture  all  the  steamers  in  the  harbor, 
and  sail  at  once  for  Ireland,  where  they  hoped  to  arrive 
before  news  of  the  daring  feat  could  be  transmitted. 
The  very  improbability,  in  fact,  almost  impossibility 
of  such  a  mad  scheme  succeeding,  was  one  of  the 
strongest  points  in  its  favor.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
however,  that  the  capture  of  Chester  Castle  would  have 
been  accomplished,  had  not  an  unexpected  actor  ap- 
])eared  on  the  scene  in  the  person  of  John  Josepli 
Corydon.  the  notorious  traitor  and  spy.  This  vile 
creature,  who  had  been  sent  from  America  in  '65,  and 
Avho  j)assed  himself  off  as  an  officer  who  had  served  in 
the  Irish  Brigade,  but  who  Avas  really  never  above  a 
private — and  a  very  worthless  one  at  that — was  taken 
into  the  confidence  of  Mr.  Stephens  against  the  protest 
of  all  the  officers  who  knew  his  worthless  character, 
and  now,  with  all  the  knowledge  he  possessed  of  men 
and  their  motives,  came  to  the  surface  as  a  thorough- 
bred informer.  There  was  no  doubt  that  this  man  had 
been  giving  information  to  the  government  from  the 
start.  Corydon,  after  gaining  a  knowledge  of  all  the 
plans,  reported  to  the  chief  constable  at  Liverpool,  and 
the  attacking  party  had  hardly  time  to  assemble,  before 
the  authorities  were  prepared  to  receive  them.  They 
knew  well  from  that  moment  that  tiiere  was  a  traitor 
in  their  ranks.  But  who  was  the  traitor?  was  the 
question  asked.  The  men  now  disi)ersed  and  returned' 
to  their  homes  the  best  way  they  could,  but  a  party  of 
them  boarded  a  train  for  Holyhead,  took  tlie  Dublin 
boat,  and  were  arrested  as  soon  as  they  put  their  feet 
on  shore,  Corydon  among  the  number. 

The  oth  of  March,  the  day  to  which  the  "rising''" 
had  been  postponed,  at  length  arrived,  and  now  the- 


\ 


130 


JliELAXD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


real  figlit  was  about  to  commence.  Limerick  Junction 
had  been  selected  as  a  strategic  point,  and  tlie  forces 
ordered  to  assemble  at  this  place  were  assigned  to  the 
command  of  General  Massey.  This  man,  whose  real 
name  was  said  to  be  Coiidin,  no  sooner  stepi)ed  from 
the  train  to  the  station  than  he  found  himself  in  the 
hands  of  the  police,  and  thereupon  gave  an  exhibition 
of  the  w^onderful  courage  said  to  liave  been  displayed 
by  him  in  the  cause  of  the  Confederate  States  of 
America,  by  Jainting  dead  away!  His  real  ciiarac- 
ter  was  soon  after  displayed,  when  he  appeared  on  the 
witness-stand  as  a  full-fledged  informer.  The  news  of 
the  capture  spread  through  the  surrounding  country 
like  wildlire,  and  it  soon  became  evident  to  the  in- 
surgents tliat  all  their  plans  had  been  revealed  to  the 
crowu  authorities.  Finding  themselves  almost  Avholly 
unarmed,  and  without  any  competent  head  to  guide 
their  movements,  the  people  natuially  became  dis- 
couraged, and  soon  began  to  seek  their  homes  in  every 
direction. 

In  Cork  County  the  rising  assumed  its  most  formid- 
able shape,  where,  under  the  command  of  Captain 
Mackej",  several  police  barracks  were  taken,  where  in 
every  instance  their  defenders,  the  police,  were  treated 
with  the  greatest  courtes.y  and  forbearance.  Jn  fact,  this 
was  the  prevailing  spirit  disi)layed  by  the  people 
and  their  leaders  all  over  the  country  wherever  a 
temporary  victory  was  obtained  over  their  enemies.  At 
Kilniallock,  County  Limerick,  where  Captain  John 
McClure  commanded,  the  town  was  in  the  hands  of 
Nationalists  during  the  greater  part  of  the  day; 
not  a  sino;le  act  that  could  reflect  on  their  honor  or 
discipline  was  committed.  Private  property  of  every 
description  was  scrupulously  guarded  ;  even  in  tlie 
banks,  where  arms  had  been  sought  and  found,  not  a 
sin"*le  n^ennv  of.  the  Inrc:'^  sur.is  '1*  m.ouey  on  hand  was 


HE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT. 


131 


touched.  The  police,  having  been  summoned  from  the 
neighboring  towns,  arrived  in  force  late  in  the  afternoon 
and  compelled  the  Nationalists  to  retire,  several  of 
whom  were  killed  or  wounded.  One  among  the  killed 
was  wholl}''  unknown  to  the  people  of  the  vicinity,  and 
to  honor  his  memoi'v,  a  monumerit  was  placed  over  his 
grave,  inscribed,  "Unknown,"'* 

A  fight  in  Ireland  without  Tipperar3'',  to  be  sure, 
would  be  a  tame  affair,  and  bold  rebel  Tipperary  came 
gallantly  to  the  front.  But  even  the  couiage  and  head- 
long daring  for  which  the  j^eople  of  this  noble  county 
are  celebrated  could  not  bear  up  under  the  depressing 
effects  of  imperfect  organization,  incompetent  leader- 
ship, and  a  total  want  of  arms  and  munitions  of  war. 
General  Thomas  F.  Burke  commanded  in  this  district, 
but  he  too,  like  all  his  fellow-leaders,  found  himself  in 
the  hands  of  the  police  almost  before  he  had  time  to 
realize  the  absurdity  of  the  work  he  was  about  to 
commence. 

In  the  city  of  Dublin,  to  which  all  eyes  were  turned, 
the  attempted  insurrection  was  the  w^orst  failure  of  alL 
The  government  authorities,  fully  posted  in  all  the 
^Tiovements  of  the  Nationalists  b}^  the  traitor  Corydon, 
permitted  the  thousands  of  men  who  left  tlie  city  on 
the  morning  of  the  5th  of  March  to  pass  out  unmo- 
lested. The  departure  of  these  men  was  no  secret ;  it 
occurred  in  broad  davliu'ht,  and  even  had  there  been 
no  traitor  in  their  ranks,  the  publicity  given  to  the 
movement  could  not  fail  to  have  excited  the  suspicions 
of  the  Castle  people.  All  the  morning  this  remarkable 
l^rocession  continued  to  move  in  the  direction  of  Tal- 
laght,  the  place  designated  for  tiie  rendezvous,  about 
five  miles  from  Dublin,  and  near  thebnse  of  the  Wick- 
low  Mountains.  The  first  band  that  arrived,  greatly  to 
their  surprise,  were  received  with  a  volley  of  musketry, 


132  lEELANDj  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


wliicli  sent  them  back  in  confusion.    Corvdon  the 
traitor  had  done  his  work  well.    The  news  of  the  be- 
trayal was  soon  communicated  to  the  advancing  throng, 
and  escape  was  sought  in  every  direction.  Before  night, 
or  rather  before  the  following  morning,  hundreds  of 
these  misguided  people  were  in  the  hands  of  England's 
merciless  hirelingSc    It  was  as  well,  perhaps,  that  this 
part  of  the  plan  miscarried.    Had  the  men  of  Dublin 
assembled  under  the  leader  who  had  been  chosen  to 
command  them,  nothing  could  have  prevented  a  des- 
])erate  struggle.    General  William  G.  Halpin  was  an 
officer  who  had  rendered  eminent  service  in  the  Union 
army  during  the  American  civil  war,  and  had  he  once 
succeeded  in  getting  ihese  men  under  his  control,  his 
natural  soldierly  instincts  and  his  unfaltering  love  of 
discipline  would  soon  have  moulded  them  into  a  for- 
midable force,  that  would  have  at  least  put  England's 
trained  ranks  to  a  fearful  test.    The  men  from  Kings- 
town, always  firm  in  their  duty  to  the  cause,  captuied 
on  their  way  two  police  barracks  and  made  prisoners 
of  the  police.    These  Avere  the  barracks  at  Stepaside 
and  Glencullen.    On  arriving  near  Tallaglit,  however, 
•    they  were  soon  made  aware,  by  the  people  falling  back, 
that  the  secrets  of  the  organization  had  been  betrayed, 
and  all  was  over. 

Tluis 'ended  the  so-called  rising"  of  1867,  which  for 
wild,  Utopian  conception,  and  lack  of  ability  in  the 
execution  of  the  plan  as  a  whole,  exceeds  every  other 
attempt  known  to  the  annals  of  Irish  history.  The 
movement,  however,  developed  one  fact,  from  which  a 
lesson  for  the  future  maybe  learned:  that  the  people 
of  Ireland,  properly  guided,  and  with  the  means  in  their 
possession,  will  fight  for  their  independence.  Mucli 
has  been  said  and  written  about  the  precipitous  fiight 
of.  the  people  before  armed  force,  but  there  is  nothing 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT.  133 

in  all  this  that  ought  to  be  recorded  to  their  discredit. 
It  only  goes  to  j^rove  that  their  natural  common  sense 
and  sound  judgment  were  superior  to  the  false  reason- 
ing  of  enthusiastic,  and  in  many  instances  incompetent 
leaders.  This  whole  affair  should  teach  the  i3<^ople  of 
Ireland  to  trust  to  their  own  resources,  to  cultivate 
self-reliance  more,  and  depend  less  on  outside  aid. 
There  were  in  Ireland  on  that  oth  of  March,  1867,  a 
thousand  Irishmen,  any  one  of  whom  were  worth  a 
dozen  Claserets  or  Fariolas,  had  they  been  only  taught 
to  relv  on  and  to  cultivate  their  own  natural  ability  to 
command. 

The  news  of  the  uprising  in  Ireland  caused  the 
greatest  excitement  among  the  Fenians  of  the  United 
States,  and  instant  steps  were  taken  to  send  off  all  the 
aid  possible  to  encourage  "  the  men  at  home''  to  con- 
tinue the  struggle.  The  first  fruits  of  this  stej)was  the 
purchase  of  a  small  vessel  of  about  two  hundred  tons 
btirden,  which  was  cleared  from  the  ctistom-house  in 
New  York  under  the  name  of  the  "  Jackmel,"  with  a 
cargo  consigned  to  a  mercantile 'house  in  Cuba.  On 
rounding  Sandy  Hook  the  vessel  was  approached  by  a 
small  tug-boat,  which  transferred  from  her  deck  to  that 
of  the  Jackmel  about  fifty  men,  after  which  the  little 
vessel  immediately  started  on  her  trip  to  Cuba.  But 
no  sooner  was  she  out  of  sight  of  land,  than  she  changed 
her  course  for  Ireland.  A  muster  on  deck  of  her  pas- 
sengers and  crew  disclosed  many  well-known  New 
Yorkers,  some  of  whom  had  served  in  the  army  or 
navy  of  the  United  States.  The  Sunburst  was  run  up 
to  the  masthead  amid  the  cheers  and  consrratulations 
of  all  on  board,  and  soon  the  "good  ship"'  Jackmel's 
name  was  removed  and  in  its  place  appeared,  ''Erin's 
Hope.''  Poor  Erin  had  little  to  hope  for  from  this 
grand  expedition,  for  on  arriving  at  the  i^oint  of  des- 


134  IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 

tination— Sli«]co  Bay — tliev  found  tlieir  course  inter- 
cepted  by  British  cruisers,  and  were  obliged  to  tack 
and  turn  on  and  off,  until  at  length,  finding  tlieir  pro- 
visions running  short,  they  were  compelled  to  land  a  part 
of  their  force  near  Dungarvan,  after  a  passage  of  some 
two  months,  leaving  on  board  only  such  numbers  as 
could  be  provided  with  provisions  back  to  America. 
About  thirty  of  the  crew  of  the  "Erin's  Hope'* 
landed  on  the  Irish  coast,  and  it  was  not  long  before 
they  were  enjoying  the  hospitalities  of  the  ''Gorilla" 
in  Kilmaiuliam  Jail.  But  the  Castle  people  were  after 
all  sorely  puzzled  to  know  what  disposition  they  should 
make  of  their  guests.  None  of  the  men  had  arms. 
There  was  nothing  about  them  to  show  that  thev  were 
anything  more  than  a  shipwrecked  crew,  and  they  had 
violated  no  law.  But  soon  the  whole  secret  was  dis- 
closed. A  wretch — one  Buckley,  we  believe, — whose 
cowardly  heart  should  never  have  found  place  in  the 
breast  of  a  man,  revealed  all  to  the  government,  and  a 
few  days  later  the  prisoners  stood  in  the  dockchaiged 
with  treason  felony  The  prisoners  were  all  convicted, 
among  whom  were  Warren  and  Costello,  who  claimed 
the  protection  of  the  United  States  government,  but 
without  avail,  Enirland  holding  to  her  inalienable  riaht, 
''  once  a  subject,  always  a  subject,"  and  so  these 
American  citizens  were  sentenced  to  twelve  and  fifteen 
years  respectiveh'.  This  question  of  citizenship  was 
since  brought  before  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  and  througii  the  efl^orts  of  the  Irish-Americans 
and  their  infiuence  with  the  government,  England  was 
forced  to  surrender  her  feudal  right,  and  to  recognize 
the  authority  of  the  United  States  government  to  de- 
mand protection  for  her  citizens,  irrespective  of  na- 
tivity, wherever  their  interests  might  be  assailed. 
The  '-Erin's  Hope"  returned  to  New  York  with  the 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT.  135 

men  wlio  remained  on  board,  and  Captain  Cavanagb, 
her  commander,  delivered  up  his  charge,  with  a  report 
of  the  expedition,  to  the  Fenian  authorities  in  that 
city.  Here  ended  tiie  history  of  the  lirst  armed  inva- 
sion of  Ireland  that  ever  took  place  from  the  United 
States.  It  was  a  silly  affair,  and  was  a  fitiing  finale  to 
the  great  farce  which  first  excited  the  delusive  hopes 
that. brought  it  into  existence. 

We  are  now  called  upon  to  record  the  saddest  event 
.of  this  Avhole  sad  and  ill-timed  affair.  Immediately 
after  the  collapse  of  the  movement,  the  broken  ranks 
of  the  Nationalists  were  partiall}^  reformed,  and  in  the 
following  September  Colonel  Kelh%  who  had  up  to  this 
time  remained  in  Dublin,  crossed  over  to  England  to 
attend  a  council  of  the  Brotherhood  in  Manchester, 
where  he  was  arrested  by  the  police,  together  with  a 
Captain  Dease\%  while  loitering  about  the  city.  At  first 
his  real  character  was  unknown  to  the  police,  and  he 
was  about  being  sentenced  to  jail  for  some  local  offense, 
when  a  spy  disclosed  his  real  name,  and  he  was  im- 
mediately remanded.  As  soon  as  the  news  had  gone 
forth,  the  greatest  excitement  prevailed  amongst  the 
Manchester  circles,  and  a  secret  council  was  at  once 
convened,  at  which  it  was  resolved  to  attack  the  prison 
van,  and  rescue  Kellv.  On  AVednesdav,  the  18th  of 
September,  the  prisoners  Kelly  and  Deasey  were  again 
before  the  court,  when  a  formal  commitment  was  made 
out  against  them  in  their  own  proper  names.  From 
the  court  they  were  transferred  to  the  van  under  guard 
ol  twelve  policemen,  and  about  three  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon  the  van  drove  off  to  the  jail  at  Saiford.  On 
the  Hyde  Park  road,  near  Bellevue,  the  escort  was 
attacked  by  a  picked  force  from  the  circles  of  Man 
Chester,  and  the  prisoners,  Kelly  and  Deasey,  taken 
from  the  van.    The  constable  inside,  one  Brett,  having 


136 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


possession  of  tlie  key,  refused  to  give  it  up,  and  one  of 
the  attacking  parry  put  his  revolver  to  the  key-hole 
and  fired,  intending  to  break  the  lock.  Brett,  it  ap- 
pears, at  that  very  moment  was  looking  through  the 
key-hole,  to  ascertain  the  strengtli  of  the  rescuing 
party,  and  the  bullet  entered  his  body,  killing  him 
almost  instantly.  A  woman  inside  the  van,  also  a 
prisoner,  now  took  the  key  from  the  pocket  of  Brett 
and  handed  it  out  through  ihe  w  indow  of  the  van,  when 
theTloor  was  unlocked,  and  the  party  witlidrew,  send-, 
irig  Kelly  and  Deasey  in  advance  under  protection  of  a 
few  friends.  The  rescuers  w^ere  now  pursued  by  the 
police,  assisted  by  the  crowd,  wdiich  had  by  this  time 
collected  to  the  number  of  several  hundreds,  and  manj^ 
of  the  daring  band  were  captured  and  severely  beaten 
and  stoned  by  the  mob.  The  five  men  arrested, 
William  Philip  Allen,  Michael  Larkin,  Michael 
O'Brien,  Thomas  Maguire,  and  Edward  Condon,  were 
i)laced  before  the  bar  on  the  2Stli  of  October,  charged 
with  the  murder  of  Officer  Brett.  A  commission  had 
alread}^  been  formed  to  try  them.  The  five  men  were 
tried  together  under  the  same  charge,  and  the  evidence 
produced  on  the  trial  was  of  such  a  character  that  it 
was  afterwards  acknowledged  by  the  crown  counsel 
that  little  reliance  should  have  been  i)laced  on  it. 
The  men  were  all  convicted  of  murder  and  sentenced  to 
be  hanged,  but  a  reaction  of  public  feeling  soon  after 
set  in,  and  Maguire  was  pardoned  and  Condon  re^meved. 
It  will  be  borne  in  mind  that  all  five  were  charged 
with  the  same  crime,  and  convicted  under  the  same 
evidence,  and  if  the  two  latter  w^ere  innocent,  the  other 
three  must  have  been  equally  so.  But  the  lialf- savage, 
howling  mob  demanded  a  sacrifice,  and  English  justice 
bowed  to  the  demand.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that 
some  of  the  men  were  not  present  with  the  rescuing 


THE  FENIAN  MOVEMENT, 


137 


party,  and  it  is  equally  as  well  known  now  that  none  of 
them  tired  the  fatal  shot. 

Allen,  when  addressing  the  court,  said:  No  man  in 
this  court  regrets  the  death  of  Sergeant  Brett  more  than  I 
do,  and  I  positively  say,  in  the  presence  of  the  Almighty 
and  Ever-living  God,  that  I  am  innocent, — aye,  as 
innocent  as  any  man  in  this  court.  I  do  not  say  this 
for  the  sake  of  mercy;  I  want  no  mercy,  I'll  have  no 
mercy;  Til  die,  as  many  thousands  have  died,  for  the 
sake  of  their  beloved  land,  and  in  defense  of  it." 

Maguire  declared  that  every  witness  against  them 
had  committed  perjury. 

One  of  the  prisoners,  at  the  conclusion  of  the  trial, 
said  : 

You  will  soon  send  us  before  God,  and  I  am  per- 
fectly prepared  to  go.  I  have  nothing  to  regret,  or  to 
retract,  or  take  back.  I  can  only  say,  God  save  Ire^ 
landP' 

Stepping  to  the  front  of  the  dock,  with  their  hands 
and  eves  raised  with  solemn  earnestness  to  Heaven, 
these  five  noble  men,  in  a  loud,  firm  voice,  repeated: 
''God  save  Ireland !" 

On  the  22d  of  November  a  mob  began  to  collect  out- 
side the  prison  gates,  and  the  scenes  that  occurred  dur- 
ing that  night  beggar  description.  With  fierce  yells  and 
cries  of  vengeance  against  the  "  Fenian 'murderers," 
these  savages  passed  the  night  in  undisputed  posession 
of  the  place,  much  to  the  disturbance  of  the  devotional 
exercises  in  which  the  prisoners  were  engaged  inside. 
On  the  cold,  foggy  morning  of  the  23d  of  November, 
1867,  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien  were  led  forth  to  the 
seaffold.  The  Seventv-second  Hif2:hlanders  formed  a  line, 
with  bayonets  fixed,  around  the  platform.  Allen  came 
first,  pale  but  resolute.  Next  came  Larkin,  with  a 
calm,  religious  resignation  in  his  bearing.  O'Brien 


138 


IRELAND,  PAST  AKD  PRESENT 


followed  last.  The  proud,  dignified  step  and  well- 
poised  head  caused  a  blush  of  shame  to  spring  to  the 
cheek  of  more  than  one  spectator,  who  seemed  suddenly 
to  realize  that  they  were  there  to  witness  the  murder  of 
such  a  man!  The  mournful  toll  of  the  death-bell  for 
the  moment  checked  even  the  liowlings  of  the  savage 
crowd,  and  aVnid  profound  silence  tlie  three  martyrs 
ascended  the  gallows.  O'Brien  step])ed  up  to  his  two 
comrades,  kissed  them  tenderly,  and  all  three  embraced 
each  other  with  brotherly  affection  ;  the  cords  were 
adjusted  around  each  neck,  the  bolts  were  drawn,  and  in 
a  few  minutes  the  souls  of  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien 
passed  into  eternity. 


HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION. 


139 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  WRETCHED  CONDITION  OF  IRELAND. 

VieiDS  and  Opinions  of  Foreign  Wriiers —  What 
Eminent  German  Professors  Say — Tlte  Bishop 
of  Autun — What  American  Wriiers  and  Speakers 
Think  of  England"  s  Treatment  of  Ireland — Ireland"  s 
Claims  on  America. 

To  THOSE  born  in  Ireland  it  is  unnecessary  to  detail 
her  wrongs  and  her  grievances,  or  to  picture  her 
wretched  condition,  or  the  causes  that  have  i)roduced 
her  nuser}^,  her  suffering?;,  and  her  degradation;  but  to  • 
Americans,  v^dio  have  heard  and  read  so  much  about 
the  glorious  Constitution  of  Enghmd  and  the  impar- 
tiality of  her  laws,  it  might  be  well  to  picture  Ireland 
to  them  as  seen  hy  disinterested  parties. 

Beaumont,  the  celebrated  French  publicist,  visited 
Ireland  as  far  back  as  1835,  and  said  of  it:  ''I  have 
seen  the  Indian  in  his  forest  and  the  negro  in  his 
chains,  and  thought  that  I  had  beheld  the  lowest  term 
of  human  misery:  but  I  had  not  then  known  the  lot 
of  Ireland,  for  Irish  misery  forms  a  type  of  itself,  of 
which  the  like  exists  nowhere  else." 

Von  Raumer,  the  eminent  German  professor,  visited 
Ireland  in  1835,  and  wrote  about  it  in  a  similar 
manner. 

Kohl,  another  distinguished  writer,  visiting  Ireland 
about  the  same  time,  said  of  it  that*  ''He  doubted 


140 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PKE.>ENT. 


whether  in  the  wliole  world  a  nation  could  be  found 
subjected  to  the  physical  privations  of  the  peasantry 
in  some  parrs  of  Ireland.  .  .  .  ]^so\viiere  but  in 
Ireland  could  be  found  human  creatures  living,  from 
years  end  to  year's  end,  on  the  same  root,  berry,  or 
weed.  There  were  animals,  indeed,  that  did  so,  but 
human  beino^s — nowhere  save  in  Ireland.'' 

Mr.  Farrer  says:  ''English  travelers  have  not  spoken 
less  graphically  than  foreigners  of  the  real  state  of  parts 
of  Ireland,  from  the  time  of  Spenser,  the  poet,  down  to 
the  account  of  Mr.  Tuke  in  1880.  ' 

'*It  is  undeniable,''  said  Inglis,  after  his  visit  to  Ire- 
land in  1834,  that  the  condition  of  the  Irish  poor  is 
immeasurably  worse  than  that  of  the  West  Indian 
slave." 

Barrow,  after  a  tour  in  Ireland  in  1835,  wiires:  '*No 
picture  drawn  by*  the  pencil,  none  by  the  pen,  can 
possibly  convey  an  idea  of  the  sad  reality.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  other  country  on  the  face  of  the  earth  where 
such  extreme  misery  prevails  as  in  Ireland." 

Count  Cavour  published  two  articles  on  Ireland  in 
1843  and  '44,  in  which  he  spoke  of  the  deplorable  con- 
dition of  the  agricultural  population." 

Mind  you,  all  these  wrote  about  the  state  of  Ireland 
long  before  the  terrible  famine  of  '47  and  '48  sent  its 
people  in  millions  to  paupers'  graves,  or  outcasts  upon 
the  charity  of  the  world.  Ireland's  misery  still" con- 
tinued, though  the  population  had  been  reduced  to 
nearly  one  half  b}-  famine,  eviction,  emigration,  and 
death,  and  in  1853  Lasterye,  a  French  writer,  speaking 
of  the  wretched  state  of  Ireland,  said:  ''The  question 
is  always  the  same,  before  and  after  the  Poor  Law, 
before  and  after  the  famine,  before  and  after  the  emi- 
gration, before  and  after  the  institution  of  the  Encum- 
bered Estates  Court." 


HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION". 


141 


The  Abbe  Perrand,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Autun, 
visited  the  island  in  1860,  and  wrote :  **How  great  was 
my  astonishment,  more  than  twenty  years  after  the 
'  second  journey  of  De  Beaumont,  to  come  upon  the  very 
destitution  so  eloquently  described  by  him  in  1839!'' 
Mr.  Farrer  says  of  him:  ''After  living  long  in  a  de- 
partment considered  as  one  of  the  poorest  and  most 
backward  in  France,  Perrand  undertook  to  say.  .  .  . 

that  the  lot  of  the  i)oorest  peasant  in  France  could 
not  compare  with  the  misery  of  a  large  part  of  Ireland." 

Of  the  numerous  American  writers  who  have  visited 
Ireland  and  described  her  suft'eringsin  our  own  day,  tlie 
following  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Redpath  embodies  their 
report.  He  says:  "  Christianity  has  been  called  the 
religion  of  sorrow.  If  it  be  so,  then  the  Holy  Land  of 
our  day  is  in  the  West  of  Ireland.  In  spirit  let  us 
loose  the  sandals  from  our  feet  as  we  draw  near  that 
sacred  ground.  Every  sod  of  its  ancient  soil  is  wet 
with  the  dew  of  human  tears.  Every  murmur  of  its 
rippling  brooks  is  accompanied  with  a  chorus  of  sighs 
from  breaking  human  hearts.  Every  breeze  which 
sweeps  across  its  barren  moors  carries  to  the  mountain 
tops,  and,  I  trust,  far  beyond,  the  groans  and  the 
prayers  of  a  brave  but  despairing  people.  The  sun 
never  sets  upon  their  sorrows,  except  to  give  i)lace  to 
the  pitying  stars  which  look  down  there  on  human 
woes." 

The  Hon.  Jeremiah  S.  Black,  one  of  America's  ablest 
jurists,  in  a  speech  at  Baltimore,  April  18th,  1882, 
speaking  of  Ireland,  said: 

''For  seven  centuries  Ireland  has  worn  the  yoke  of 
l^olitical  bondage.  During  all  that  time,  except  one 
short  interval,  she  has  not  been  permitted  to  make  any 
laws  for  the  protection  of  her  own  j^eople  in  their 
persons  or  property.    "What  they  call  Home  Rule,  or 


142 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRE:?KNT. 


the  privilege  of  local  self-government,  is  wholly  denied 
them.  Their  affairs  are  entirely  directed  by  another 
power,  whuse  orders  are  executed  by  agents  and  over- 
seers sent  upon  them  for  that  j)iirpose.  Such  a  govern-* 
ment  is  sure  to  be  administered  without  the  smallest 
regard  for  the  rights,  interests,  feelings,  or  wishes  of 
the  i)eople  who  are  subject  to  it.  Enemies  and 
strancrers  so  fastened  upon  a  community  will  certainly 
rule  for  their  own  pleasure,  advantage,  and  profit. 
Any  person  who  does  not  know  this  to  be  a  great 
fundamental  fact,  established  by  all  human  experience, 
and  underlying  the  whole  science  of  government,  is  not 
at  all  prepared  to  consider  this  subject,  and  he  had 
better  no  further  attention  to  it.  But  if  he  under- 
stands  that  much,  he  also  knows  that  the  want  of 
Home  Rule  in  Ireland  is  the  want  of  evervthinsr  else. 
As  a  consequence  of  that  privation  she  is  oppressed, 
degraded,  insulted,  steeped  in  poverty  to  the  very  Wps, 
and  overwhelmed  with  afflictions,  which  make  her 
peculiarly  what  Senator  Bayard  has  called  her — *  the 
Island  of  Sorrows.'  The  general  notion  is  that  England 
and  Ireland  are  united  kinsrdoms:  tliev  are  called  so  in 
the  style  and  title  of  the  Queen.  But  there. is  no  real 
union,  and  there  never  j^as.  There  is  a  connection 
made  by  force;  they  are  '  pinned  together  with  bayo- 
nets.' Ireland  is  not  governed  according  either  to  the 
common  or  statute  law  of  England,  but  by  special 
legislation  made  for  her  alone.  An  act  of  Pailiament 
l^assed  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  Queen's  subjects 
does  not  apply  to  the  Irish  people,  unless  they  are 
particularly  included  by  name.  The  old  statutes  and 
royal  concessions  to  popular  liberty  are  SQ  interpreted, 
as  well  as  the  later  ones.  Thus  Ireland  is  construed 
out  of  Magna  Charta,  the  Bill  of  Rights,  and  otlier 
great  securities  which  make  Englishmen  safe  against 


HEPw  WKETCHED  CONDITION. 


143 


injustice.  In  effect,  the  British  government,  which  is 
II  limited  monarchy  at  home,  becomes  an  unrestrained 
and  absolute  despotism  when  it  crosses  the  Channel; 
,  and  the  exercise  of  this  unbounded  power  through  all 
the  centuries  of  its  existence  has  been  marked  with  the 
coarsest  cruelty  and  the  most  heartless  oppression  that 
this  world  has  ever  witnessed.  If  the  Irish  had  been 
inferior  to  the  race  wdiicli  trampled  them  down,  their 
fate  would  seem  less  hard.  But  intellectually  and 
morally  they  were  greatly  superior;  their  civilization, 
science,  art,  and  general  intelligence  w^ere  much 
further  advanced.  The  deliberate  and  long-continued 
effort  of  England  to  darken  the  mind  of  Ireland,  and 
reduce  her  people  as  much  as  joossible  to  ignorance 
and  illiterate  barbarism,  is  a  most  shocking  part  of  the 
stor}^ 

''Except  Ireland,  all  the  nations  of  the  earth  have 
been  making  some  progress.  •  Improvements  in  political 
as  well  as  physical  science  and  the  discovery  of  new 
arts  have  briglitened  the  face  of  the  civilized  world, 
and  given  dignity,  independence,  and  comfort  to  the 
mass  of  its  inhabitants.  But  the  condition  of  the  Irish 
people  is  more  wretclied  than  ever.  A  single  fact  will 
show  how  frightfully  true  this  is.  During  the  last 
forty  ,  years  the  population  of  other  countries  has 
doubled;  in  some  of  them  it  has  trebled,  and  the  average 
amount  of  provision  and  clothing  for  each  individual  is 
two  and  a  half  times  as  great.  But  in  Ireland,  with  a 
more  genial  climate  and  a  soil  incomparably  rich,  the 
numbers  have  been  reduced  from  9,000,000  to  5,000.000, 
and  of  those  who  survive,  the  great  majority  are  suffer- 
ing the  last  extremes  of  want  and  necessity.  AVhere 
are  the  other  4,000,000  and  their  multiplied  offspring? 
What  has  become  of  the  additional  12,000,000  who,  ac- 
cording to  the  natural  rule,  should  be  living  there  now 


144 


IKELAJS^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


in  comfort  and  plenty  ?  Famine  has  thinned  them  out; 
pestilence  has  svvei)t  them  away;  political  persecution 
lias  driven  them  abroad.  What  is  the  cause  of  these 
terrible  calamities?  All  men  with  one  voice  charge 
them  upon  that  atrocious  misgovernment  which  blights 
and  curses  them.  When  the  blood  of  that  unhaiYpy 
people  cries  from  the  ground  the  British  tyrant  cannot 
answer  like  Cain,  'Am  I  my  brother's  keejier?'  The 
rulers  of  a  nation  are  its  keepers,  responsible  for  its 
fate,  and  these  men  have  an  awful  account  to  render. 
For  every  false  drop  in  their  veins  an  innocent  life  has 
perished. 

"  But  if  tne  Irish  could  not  live  by  cultivating  the  soil, 
why  did  they  not  go  to  some  other  employment  ?  This 
is  a  i)ertinent  question,  and  the  answer  to  it  covers 
England  with  an  infamy  that  nothing  else  can  match. 
In  fact  and  in  truth,  they  did  betake  themselves  to  com- 
merce and  manufactures,  and  the  hope  was  bright  be- 
fore them  of  a  perfect  success.  But  their  English 
enemies  ruthlessly  broke  up  their  business  by  penal 
legislation,  destroying  their  trade,  both  foreign  and 
domestic,  by  arbitrary  prohibitions,  crushed  out  the 
enterprise,  and  forced  them  back  upon  tlie  land.  Then 
why  don't  they  fight?  They  have  tried  that,  too. 
They  never  sink  into  tame  submission.  The  most  pa- 
thetic passages  of  history  record  the  incidents  of  their 
struggle;  tlieir  rights  have  been  asserted  with  surpass- 
ing eloquence;  the  purest  poetry  in  any  language  cele- 
brates their  valor.  A  long  Hue  cf  their  most  illustrious 
men  have  suffered  martyrdom  in  the  cause  of  liberty, 
and  the  common  file  of  the  people  maintain  a  character 
for  turbulent  disloyalty  w-hicli  ought  to  excite  universal 
admiration.  Their  spirit  was  never  broken;  they  lack 
no  gall  to  make  oppression  bitter.  But  each  defeated 
effort  to  right  themselves  was  made  an  excuse  for  the 


0 


I 


V 


.  HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION. 


140 


infliction  of  new  outrages.  Whole  districts  were  de- 
populated by  the  process  which  they  called  a  clearance — 
that  is,  the  destruction  of  all  habitations  and  the  ex- 
pulsion of  all  occajjants,  accompanied  b\^  circumstances 
of  the  direst  crael*:y.  No  chance  was  lost  to  hang  or 
imprison  a  patriot.  The  higher  he  stood  for  talents 
and  integrity,  the  surer  he  was  to  be  claimed  by  (he 
scaffold  or  the  dungeon.  The  yoke  was  tightened  on 
all  who  were  allowed,  to  live  and  go  at  large.  It  was  a 
mortal  offense  to  meet  and  petition  for  the  redress  of 
grievances.  Political  opinions  adverse  to  the  govern- 
ment were  sure  to  call  down  its  wrath  and  malice. 
Even  the  fidelity  of  the  people  to  their  religious  convic- 
tions—the highest  virtue  that  can  adorn  an}^  human 
character — was  imputed  to  them  as  a  crime,  and  imn- 
ished  so  barbarously  that  it  cannot  be  thought  of 
without  detestation  and  horror." 

Mr.  James  Redpath,  a  distinguished  American  writer 
and  lecturer,  and  at  one  time  a  most  zealous  aboli- 
tionist, went  to  Ireland,  in  1880,  to  write  up  the  state 
of  the  country  for  The  JVew  Yorlz  Tribune.  Though 
])rejudi.ced  against  Ireland  and  the  Irish  when  he  went 
there,  his  generous  American  heart  became  full  of  gall 
against  England  when  he  saw  the  slavish,  degraded 
condition  in  which  the  Irish  people,  were  kept  under 
her  blighting  rule.  We  take  the  following  short 
extracts  from  his  "Talks  about  Ireland":  . 

THE  WEST  OF  IRELAND. 

Let  us  now,  in  spirit,  take  the  shoes  from  off  our 
feet  as  we  draw  nigh  the  hol}^  ground  of  Connaught. 
and  Munsler.  There  is  nothing  on  this  earth  more 
sacred  than  human  sorrow.  Christianity  itself  has 
been  called  the  Worship  of  Sorrow.    If  this  deflnition 


IRELA?s^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


be  a  true  one,  then  the  Holy  Land  of  our  day  is  the 
West  of  Ireland.  Every  sod  there  has  been  wet  with 
human  tears.  The  murmurs  of  every  rippling  brook 
there,  from  time  out  of  mind,  have  been  accompanied 
b}^  an  invisible  chorus  of  sighs  from  breaking  huniaa 
hearts.  Every  breeze  that  lias  swept  across  her  barren 
moors  has  carried  with  it  to  the  summits  of  her  bleak 
mountain  slopes  (and,  I  trust,  far  beyond  them)  the 
groans  and  the  prayers  of  a  brave  but  a  despairing 
people.  The  sun  has  never  set  on  her  sorrows,  except- 
ing to  give  place  to  the  pitying  stars  that  have  looked 
down  on  human  woes  that  excel  in  numbers  their  own 
constellated  hosts. 

I  never  vet  saw  a  single  cabin  in  the  Southern  States 
so  wretched;  I  never  met  a  slave  so  badly  dressed — I 
never  saw  a  slave  so  jioorly  fed — as  tliree  millions  of 
the  industrious  people  of  Ireland  are  lodged,  clothed, 
and  fed  to-day.  Southern  slavery,  with  the  single 
exception — and  that  was  a  ver}^  important  exception — 
of  the  right  to  sell  vested  in  the  slave-holder,  was  a 
system,  infernal  as  it  was,  vastly  superior  to  the  system 
of  Irish  tenantry  at  this  very  hour.  But  I  have  my 
notes  of  a  conversation  with  Father  John  O'Malley,  in 
Boycott's  own  parish,  and  it  is  specific  in  its  details. 
I  will  read  them,-  only  omitting  my  preliminary  ques- 
tions : 

"As  to  their  indolence,"  said  Father  John,  ''from 
my  own  experience  of  them,  and  from  ^vhat  I  have 
heard  from  so  many  high  authorities  about  the  peas- 
antry in  other  countries,  I  consider  the  Irish  j^easantry 
as  the  most  industrious  and  hard-working  race  on  the 
lace  of  the  earth.  What  do  you  think,  now  that  you 
have  seen  them  at  home  ?" 

With  the  sole  exception  of  the  Chinese,"  I  answered, 
''I  think  they  are  not  excelled  in  industry  by  any  race 


IIEII  WRETCHED  CONDITION 


147 


in  America,  and  that  they  are  only  equaled  by ^ the 
Germans." 

"Not  only  all  over  the  West,"  continued  Father 
John,  ''does  the  head  of  the  family  himself  work,  and 
his  grown  boys,  and  all  the  women,  but  even  the 
youngest  females,  as  soon  as  they  are  able  to  do  any 
work — not  only  in  the  house,  but  hard  work  in  the 
iields,  as  you  have  seen  everywhere.  They  are  so  in- 
dustrious in  their  habits,  and  so  soon  are  they  set  to 
work  as  children,  that  unless  I  make  it  a  point  to  secure 
the  attendance  of  the  children  at  school  between  the 
ages  ot  live  and  eleven,  I  might  bid  farewell  to  all  hopes 
of  teaching  them  at  all.  Ijf  the  people  did  not  work  as 
incessantly^  as  they  do,  how  could  they  procure  even 
the  commonest  sustenance  for  their  large  families,  after 
paying  such  exorbitant  rents  and  taxes?  From  my 
experience  and  observation,  all  over  this  West  of  Ire- 
land (and  I  have  had  a  large  experience,  and  seen  most 
of  it  thoroughly),  I  can  truly  say  that,  in  ninety-nine 
cases  out  of  a  hundred,  whenever  you  see  any  Irish 
peasant  not  ac  work  it  is  simply  because  he  can  find 
nothing  to  do. 

"Now,  then,  as  to  his  improvidence,''  continued 
Father  John,  "why,  Mr  Redpath,  the  very  idea  of 
charging  these  struggling  peasants  of  Ireland  with  im- 
X)rovidence  is  cruel  sarcasm.  Let  me  tell  you  how  the 
ordinary  peasant  lives.  But,  after  all,  I  need  not  tell 
you  how  he  lives — you  have  seen  enough  of  it;  but 
possibly  you  have  had  no  opportunity  to  see  how  they 
a  re  fed  r- 

"No,  sir." 

"Well,"  said  the  priest,  "let  me  give  you  the  daily 
bill  of  fare  of  these  peasant  families:  For  breakfast, 
potatoes.  If  they  are  pretty  comfortable,  they  have  a 
little  milk  and  butter  with  it.    But,  in  the  great  ma- 


148 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


jorifey  of  cases,  they  have  nothing  but  tbepotatoes,  and 
possibly  a  salt  herring.  The  dinner  and  the  supper  are 
only  a  repetition  of  the  breakfast.  That  is  their  bill  of 
fare  all  the  year  round,  excepting  at  Easter  and  Christ- 
mas, when  even  the  poorest  try  hard  to  get  a  few 
pounds  of  meat — generally  '  American  meat.'  " 

I  have  heard  so  much  and  I  have  seen  so  much  of 
the  sorrows  of  the  West,  thr.t  when  the  memory  of 
them  rises  up  before  me,  I  stand  appalled  at  the  vision. 
Again  and  again,  since  I  came  back  from  Ireland,  I 
have  tried  to  j)aint  a  picture  of  Western  misery;  but 
again  and  again,  and  as  often  as  I  have  tried, — even  in 
the  solitude  of  my  own  chamber,  where  no  human  eye 
could  see  me,— I  have  broken  down,  and  I  have  wept 
like  a  woman.  If  I  could  i)ut  the  j-icture  into  words, 
I  could  not  utter  the  words.  For  I  cannot  look  on 
human  sorrow  with  the  cold  and  aesthetic  eye  of  an 
artist  To  me  a  once  stalwart  peasant — shivering  in 
rags,  and  gaunt,  and  hollow- voiced,  and  staggering 
with  hunger — to  me  he  is  not  a  mere  picture  of  Irish 
life  ;  to  me  he  is  a  brother  to  be  hel2:>ed  ;  to  me  he  is  a 
Christian  prisoner  to  be  rescued  fiiom  the  pitiless  power 
of  those  infidel  Saracens  of  the  nineteenth  century — 
the  Irish  landlords  and  the  British  government. 

1  know  not  where  to  begin,  nor  what  county  to  select, 
in  either  of  these  unhapp)^  provinces. 

I  have  been  in  several  villages  where  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  them  would  have  died  from  hunger 
within  one  month,  or  joerhaiis  one  week,  from  the  hour 
in  which  the  relief  that  they  now  solely  rely  on  should 
be  refused,  because  the  men  have  neither  a  mouthful 
of  food  nor  any  chance  of  earning  a  shilling,  nor  any 
other  way  of  getting  provisions  for  their  families  until 
the  ripening  of  the  crops  in  autumn. 

I  have  entered  hundreds  of  Irish  cabins  in  districts 


HEIR  WRETCHED  CONDITION. 


149 


where  the  relief  is  distributed.  These  cabins  are  more 
.wretched  than  the  cabins  of  the  negroes  were  in  the 
darkest  days  of  slavery.  The  Irish  peasant  can  neither 
dress  as  well,  nor  is  he  fed  as  well  as  the  Southern 
slave  was  fed,  and  dressed,  and  lodged,  Donke^^s, 
and  cows,  and  pigs,  and  hens  live  in  the  same  wretched 
room  with  the  family.  Many  of  these  cabins  had  not 
a  single  article  of  bed-clothing,  except  guano-sacks  or 
potato-bags,  and  when  the  old  folks  had  a  blanket  it 
was  tattered  and  filthy, 

1  saw  only  one  woman  in  all  these  cabins  whose  face 
did  not  look  sad  and  care-racked,  and  she  was  dumb 
and  idiotic. 

The  Irish  have  been  described  by  novelists  and  trav- 
elers as  a  light-hearted  and  rollicking  people — full  of  fun 
and  quick  in  repartee — equally  ready  to  dance  or  to 
fight.  I  did  not  find  them  so.  I  found  them  in  the 
West  of  Ireland  a  sad  and  despondent  j^eople;  care- 
worn, broken-hearted,  and  shrouded  in  gloom.  Never 
once  in  the  hundreds  of  cabins  that  I  entered — never 
once,  even — did  I»catch  the  thrill  of  a  merry  voice  nor 
the  light  of  a  joyous  eye.  Old  men  and  boys,  old 
women  and  girls,  young  men  and  maidens— all  of  them, 
Avichout  a  solitary  exception — were  grave  or  haggard, 
and  every  household  looked  as  if  the  plague  of  the 
first-born  had  smitten  them  that  hour.  Rachael  weep- 
ing for  her  children,  would  have  passed  unnoticed 
among  these  warm-hearted  peasants. 

Wendell  Phillips,  the  great  American  philanthropist, 
in  a  lecture  on  Ireland  delivered  in  Boston  during  the 
present  year,  said: 

History  has  proven  that,  to  obtain  the  fullest  devel 
opment  of  a  country,  the  soil  must  be  divided  amongst 
the  people,  and  man's  keenest  interest  must  be  married 


150 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


to  tlie  land.  This  had  been  illustrated  very  forcibly  by 
the  liistorv  of  Prussia  and  France.  The  effect  in 
Ireland  of  this  principle  of  English  law  and  large 
landed  estates,  was  that  eight  thous;ind  men  owned  the 
island,  which,  measured  by  the  French  standard, 
ought  to  have  at  least  1,200,000  owners.  The  Irish 
landless  millions  were  in  a  state  of  chronic  despair, 
and  Ireland  was  anchored  back  in  perhaps  the  seven- 
teenth centurv.  But  just  at  this  moment  Enirland  was 
passing  through  a  crisis  of  enormous  significance.  The 
science  of  the  present  day,  the  servant  of  civilization, 
Avas  beating  afjainst  the  landed  svstem  of  England. 
The  iron  rail  from  Dakota  to  Boston  harbor,  and  the 
steamboat  from  Boston  harbor  to  Liveri";Ool,  puts  the 
Dakota  wheat  into  Liverjiool  harbor  to  compete  with 
Yorkshire  wheat,  and  the  expense  of  putting  these  two 
products  side  by  side  is  inappreciable.  Ten  dollars  is 
the  average  cost  of  a  Dakota  acre,  and  $200  the  price  of 
the  Yorkshire.  It  is  on  that  basis  that  the  landholder 
charges  rent.  How  can  the  Yorkshire  farmer  compete 
with  the  Dakota  farmer?  There  stands  the  landlord, 
and  you  say  to  him:  'Why  don't  you  reduce  your 
rent?'  The  reply  in  most  cases  will  be,  '  My  father  left 
a  widow;  she  has  a  right  of  dower.  She  takes  off  ten 
or  fifteen  thousand  dollars  of  my- annual  rental.  Then 
I  have  fpur  or  live  younger  brothers  or  sisters;  they 
are  mortgagees.  Then  my  father  left  me  other  mort- 
gages, and  when  I  have  paid  off  the  encumbrances 
on  my  estate  I  haven't  more  than  $20,000  left;  and  if 
I  reduce  my  rent  a  twentieth  J  am  a  pauper.'  He  stands 
between  the  upper  millstone  of  the  encumbrances  of  his 
family  and  the  nether  millstone  of  the  Dakota  acres. 

"There  never  was  an  instance  of  a  more  God-arranged 
providential  vengeance  than  is  now  exhibited.  England 
has  held  to  the  Irish  race  for  two  hundred  years  the 


HER*  WRETCHED  COXDITION. 

t 


151 


poison-cup  of  emigration.  Ireland  has  been  emptied 
of  lier  population,  and  more  than  half  the  Irish  race  is 
here.  Irish  labor  built  tlie  rail  to  Dakota,  and  it  now 
holds  the  poison-cup  to  England's  lande  i  aristocracy, 
saying :  *  Drink  of  the  cup  of  your  own  mixing.'  IN'ever 
was  anything  juster  or  better  grounded.  But  when 
Parnell  says  :  '  Oblige  those  men  to  break  up  their  lands 
and  sell  them  at  a  fair  value,'  why  is  that  not  granted? 
The  answer  is,  that  if  that  is  done,  and  the  soil  of 
Ireland  smiles  as  does  the  soil  of  France,  the  home  of  a 
happy  people,  it  will  soon  be  said,  '  If  this  is  good  for 
Ireland,  why  is  it  not  good  for  Yorkshire  V  and  Brad- 
laugh  and  the  Radicals  come  into  power.  England  is 
afraid  of  such  an  example  right  at  her  doors,  and  of 
the  change  which  threatens  her  own  petted  institution. 

"You  go  out  West,  and  every  town  and  city  cheats 
you  in  its  census,  because  Ave  reach  and  stretch  to  get 
what  all  are  seeking  for — people.  But  in  England 
they  don't  want  any  more  population  than  they  can 
conveniently  manage — that  means,  '  Enough  to  keep  my 
prestige  unbroken  and  my  land  tilled  ;  nothing  that 
will  press  forward  in  the  line  of  change  and  elevation 
and  development ;  enough  for  me  that  I  stand  here  as 
my  father  did,  and  the  rest  stand  there,  or  rather  grope 
there,  as  they  did  centuries  ngo.'  And  so,  when  you 
say  to  an  Englishman,  'Why  don't  you  change  thi^ 
system  in  Ireland,  and  then  change  it  in  England  too  ^ 
It  will  be  better  for  you.'  'Better  for  the  x>^ople  of 
England,  but  not  for  me.'  Hence  comes  the  persistent, 
determined  resistance  on  this  question.  Now,  the  Eng- 
lish governing  class  and  aristocratic  landed  interest 
are  opposing  Ireland.  England  can  accomplish  no  per- 
manent results  in  its  treatment  of  tliis  question  by 
force.  This  is  an  age  of  brains,  and  not  of  guns. 
There  is  an  old  French  proverb  that  says :  '  You  can 


152 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


do  almost  everything  with  a  bayonet,  but  you  cannot 
sit  on  it.'  So  when  you  read  that  the  English  Cabinet 
is  about  to  send  a  half-dozen  regiments  to  Ireland,  it 
may  mean  a  temporar}^  defeat,  a  postponement,  but  it 
does  not  solve  the  question.  Tiie  elements  will  remain 
there,  and  they  will  culminate  again.  Parnell  is  now 
merely  iising  England's  adversity  as  Ireland's  oppor- 
tunity, wiiich  is  the  natural  course  of  a  statesman. 

•'Some  of  you  may  criticise  very  severely  the  ap- 
parently cruel  method  by  which  the  Irish  are  enforcing 
their  rights.  But  it  is  not  for  us,  in  our  prosperity 
and  ease,  to  criticise  the  means  by  which  a  i)eople 
X^lundered  and  trampled  tinder  foot  for  one  or  two  hun- 
dred years  seeks  to  obtain  its  rights.  Such  a  people 
does  not  have  any  choice  of  its  weapons.  Another 
.thing:  I  never  criticise  methods  three  thousand  miles 
off.  Princii)les  are  universal;  and  tliey  submit  to  our 
analj^sis  as  clearly  a  nd  as  rightly  as  they  do  to  a  man  on 
the  spot.  1  would  not  criticise  the  Nihilist.  'Thank 
God !  if  he  is  a  slave,  he  is  a  rebellious  slave.'  Nor 
would  I  criticise  the  methods  of  the  Irishman.  When 
we  measure  his  suffering  and  the  poverty  of  his  re- 
sources, and  the  immeasurable  value  of  that  of  which 
he  is  deprived  and  which  he  seeks  to  gain,  it  is  hard  to 
blame  him,  no  matter  what  course  he  adopts  to  right 
himself." 

The  Rev.  George  Pepper,  an  Irish-American  Presby- 
terian minister,  writing  of  the  state  of  Ireland,  says: 
"  In  the  Union  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
'Our  race  found  a  magnificent  shelter  when  driven  from 
'their  native  land  by  the  rods  and  bayonets  of  their 
landlord  oppressors.    In  reference  to  the  cause  of  Irish 
nationality,  allow  me  also  to  say  that:  the  fires  of  pa- 
triotism burn  as  deeply  in  the  Irish  heart  in  the  States 
as  when  Hugh  O'Neill  headed  his  brave  legions  against 


HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION". 


153 


those  of  Elizabetli,  as  wlien  young  Emmet  mounted 
the  scaffold  with  fearless  courage,  as  when  the  Man- 
Chester  martyrs,  of  blessed  memory,  died  on  the  scaffold 
which  they  transfigured.  A  million  hearts  in  the  States 
burn  for  the  opportunity  of  revenging  the  wrongs  of 
seven  centuries,  and  of  making  Ireland  one  of  the  free 
republics  of  the  earth.  During  the  last  winter  I  lec- 
tured one  hundred  times  upon  Ireland,  and  every  where 
this  was  the  pervading,  all-embracing  thought  of  Irish 
hearts — yes,  and  also  of  American  hearts.  Thank  God! 
in  that  noblest  of  countries  all  are  united.  Wherever 
Freedom  plants  her  standard,  wherever  the  oppressed 
pants  for  liberty,  there  the  American  heart  sympathizes. 
Protestant  clergymen  there  take  their  stand  side  by 
side  with  Catholic  priests.  I  hope  the  day  is-  not  far 
distant  when  similar  union  will  take  i^lace  in  unhappy 
Ireland.  When  that  transpires,  then  the  last  chapter 
of  British  tvrannv  on  this  unfortunate  country  is  writ- 
ten.  Charles  Sumner,  one  of  America's  greatesc  and 
purest  statesmen,  whom  we  buried  in  tears  and  in  glorj^, 
wrote  me,  amongst  his  latest  utterances,  that  'Justice  to 
Ireland  is  a  British  necessity.  In  every  effort  for  Irish 
independence  there  is  but  one  side  for  my  sympathy 
and  sux^port.' 

"I  have  just  returned  from  the  Continent  of  Europe, 
and  nowhere  have  I  ever  seen  so  much  beggary,  so 
much  wretchedness,  so  m.ucli  absolute  degradation  as 
even  in  this  so-called  prosperous  Protestant  North. 
There  are  hundreds  of  those  Protestant  farmers  who 
never  eat  an  egg,  a  chicken,  meat  of  any  kind.  All 
must  be  sold  to  pay  the  landlord.  Great  God  !  how 
long  must  this  last?  Why,  sir,  there  is  enough  ma- 
terial in  this  sentence  to  make  a  book  of  martyrs. 
Every  man  I  met,  all  Protestants,  is  thirsting  for  the 
good  time  coining  when  the  old  gospel  of  '  land  for  the 


4 


1^-4  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

landless,'  *  Ireland  for  the  Irish' — a  gospel  which  the 
iiearens  and  the  earth  are  preaching — shall  be  univer- 
sally embraced  and  practically  enforced." 

D.  P.  Locke,  editor  of  The  Toledo  Blade^  but  who 
is  better  known  to  the  public  as  * 'Petroleum  Y.  Nasby," 
went  to  Ireland,  as  he  states  himself,  English  in  heart 
and  sentiment,  and  thoroughly  opposed  to  the  Irish 
people  and  cause.  When  there  some  time  his  American 
sense  of  justice  and  fair  play  revolted  against  what  he 
witnessed  there,  and  he  wrote  a  series  of  scathing 
letters  on  Ireland,  from  which  we  take  the  following 
extracts: 

"  Irish  landlordism  is  condensed  villainy.  It  is  the 
very  top  and  summit  of  oppression,  cruelty,  brutality, 
and  terror. 

''It  was  conceived  in  lust  and  greed,  born  of  fraud, 
and  perpetuated  by  force. 

*'  It  does  not  recognize  manhood,  womanhood,  or 
childhood.    Its  cold  hand  is  unon  everv  cradle  in 

^  ft/ 

Ireland.  Its  victims  are  the  five  millions  of  j^eople  in 
Ireland  who  cannot  get  away,  and  the  instruments  used 
are  bayonets  and  ball  cartridires. 

"It  is  a  ghoul  that  would  invade  graveyards,  were 
there  any  profit  to  be  gotten  out  of  graveyards.  It  is 
the  coldest-blooded,  cruelest  infamy  that  the  world  has 
ever  seen,  and  that  any  race  of  peox)le  were  ever  fated 
to  groan  under. 

"Irish  landlordism  is  legal  brigandage — it  is  an 
organized  hell. 

"  Wesley  said  that  African  slavery  was  the  sum  of  all 
villainies.  Irish  landlordism  comprises  all  the  villainies 
that  the  devil  ever  invented,  Avith  African  slavery 
thrown  in.  Irish  landlordism  makes  African  slavery  a 
virtue  by  comioarison.  For  when  a  negro  slave  got  too 
old  to  work  he  was  given  some  place  in  which  to  live 


HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION',  155 

and  sufficient  food  to  keep  him  in  some  sort  of  life, 
and  clotlies  enough  to  shield  him  from  the  elements. 

'•The  Irish  tenant,  when  he  becomes  old  and  cannot 
work,  is  thrown  out  upon  the  roadside,  with  his  wife  and  ^ 
children,  to  die  and  rot.  He  has  created  land  with  his 
own  hands  which  he  is  .not  allowed  to  occupy.  He  has 
grown  crops  which  he  is  not  allowed  to  eat;  he  has 
labored  as  no  other  man  in  the  world  labors,  without 
being  permitted  to  enjoy  the  fruits  of  his  labor.  The 
virtue  of  his  wife  and  daughter  are  in  the  keeping  of 
the  vilkiin  who  by  virtue  of  bayonets  controls  his  land. 
In  short,  to  sum  it  all  up  in  one  word,  the  Irishman  is 
a  serf,  a  slave." 

Nasby  states  that  he  went  from  Dublin  to  Cork  the 
most  prejudiced  man  in  the  world  against  the  Irish. 
There  he  disputed  with  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  en- 
deavoring to  convince  him  that  he  was  a  demagogue, 
Thns  it  was  Avhen  James  Redpath  found  him,  and 
told  him  how  he  would  prove  to  him  that  he  was  wrong 
in  the  sentiments  he  entertained  towards  the  Irish, 
Mr.  Redpath  took  him  to  the  South  of  Ireland,  and 
there,  at  the  foot  of  tlie  Galtee  Mountains,  Nasby 
visited  cabins,  one  of  which  he  thus  describes: 

"The  idea  that  human  beings,  made  in  God's  image, 
having  the  power  to  think,  to  reason,  and  to  act,  could 
live,  even  exist,  in  such  a  hovel  as  that  was  so  incredi- 
ble that  we  insisted  upon  going  over  and  seeing  how  it 
was  done.  Wading  through  mud  and  slush  coming 
ov^er  our  shoe-tops,  we  bent  our  heads  and  entered. 
The  room,  if  so  it  could  hj  a  stretch  of  imagination  be 
called,  was  so  low  that  we  could  not  stand  erect.  The 
cold,  bare  earth  that  constituted  the  Hoor  was  damp 
and  slippery,  as  the  rain  came  trickling  down  through 
the  broken  thatch  and  formed  little  pools  on  the  ground. 
Near  a  suggestion  of  a  lire  were  huddled  a  woman  and 


156  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

four  children,  the  eldest  not  more  than  eight  years  of 
age.  As  we  entered  they  all  arose.  We  were  horrified 
to  see  that  they  were,  as  usual,  without  stockings  or 
shoes,  and  their  clothing  was  so  torn  and  ragged  that 
it  afforded  but  little  warmth.  The  motlier  and  her 
little  girls  were  blue  with  cokl.  Their  features  were 
pinched  with  hunger.  Their  whole  appearance  indi- 
cated the  want  and  suffering  they  ftad  been  ^^^tiently 
enduring  for  years.  Over  in  one  corner  of  the  room 
was  what  they  called  a  bed.  It  consisted  of  four  posts 
driven  into  the  ground.  On  stringers  were  laid  a  few 
rough  boards.  On  these  boards  Avere  dried  leaves  and 
heather,  covered  by  a  few  old  potato-sacks.  There  was 
where  this  family  of  six  persons  slept.  There  was  no 
window  in  the  house,  the  only  light  and  ventilation 
being  furnished  by  the  door  and  the  cracks  in  the 
thatched  roof. 

"It  was  too  horrible,  and  we  went  out  again  into  the 
rain.  There  we  could  at  least  get  a  breath  of  fresh  air. 
We  asked  our  guide  how  this  family  managed  to  keep 
the  breath  of  life  in  them.  He  said  they  lived  as  their 
neighbors  did,  on  potatoes  and  'stirabout.' 
•  What  is  '' stirabout?"  ' 

'  It  is  a  sort  of  mush  made  of  Indian  meal  and  skim- 
milk.  They  have  that  occasionally  for  a  little  luxur}', 
or  when  the  potatoes  are  so  scarce  that  they  think  they 
must  husband  them.' 

" '  You  don't  mean  to  say  that  these  people  actually 
live  on  that  fare,  that  they  have  nothing  else  ?  They 
at  least  have  meat  with  their  potatoes  V 

"'God  bless  you,  sir,'  and  the  honest  man's  eyes 
filled  with  tears,  '  they  never  know  the  taste  of  meat. 
There  has  not  been  a  bit  of  m^at  in  my  house  since  last 
Christmas,  when  we  were  fortunate  enough  to  get  a  bit 
of  pig's  head.    But  up  here  they  don't  even  have  that-* 


HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION*. 


157 


Surely  this  must  have  been  an  exceptional  case.  It 
was  impossible  that  even  in  that  country  there  could 
be  more  than  one  or  two  instances  of  such  utter  and 
abject  woe  and  misery.  Bat  Mr.  Dugii^an  told  us  to 
the  contrary.  He  said  that  the  house  we  had  just  left 
was  only  a  fair  sample  of  what  was  to  be  seen  all  over 
the  Galtee  Mountains.  To  be  convinced,  we  trudged 
painfully  through  the  rain  for  seven  long  hours.  AVe 
toiled  through  helds  that  in  America  would  not  be  ac- 
cepted as  a  gift.  Here,  if  the  exorbitant  rent  charged 
for  them  could  not  be  paid,  the  holders  were  evicted. 
We  went  through  roads  so  wretchedly  bad  that  teams 
could  not  travel  over  them.  Yet  taxes  had  to  be  paid 
by  those  who  had  holdings  on  either  side.  We  saw 
fields  that  had  been  reclaimed  from  the  original  state, 
had  been  made  productive,  and  had  been  the  cause  of 
the  eviction  of  the  holder  because  he  could  not  pay  the 
rent  Avhich  the  improvements  brought  upon  him.  He 
had  been  thrown  off  the  land,  and  it  was  rapidly  going 
to  waste  again.  Large  patches  of  heather,  which  is 
worse  than  the  American  farmers'  bane,  the  Canada 
thistle,  were  growing  over  it,  choking  all  other  forms 
of  vegetation.  It  would  only  take  another  season  to 
make  the  land  so  worthless  that  three  years  of  hard 
work  would  be  required  to  put  it  back  to  the  condition 
it  was  in  when  the  holder  had  been  compelled  to  leave 
it,  after  having  devoted  the  best  years  of  his  life  to 
reclaiming  and  making  it  productive.  After  seven  hours 
of  such  sights  as  these,  which  cannot  be  described,  we 
were  wet,  weary,  and  mad.  We  had  seen  enough  for 
one  day,  and  were  ready  to  go  back.  All  during  the 
long  drive  to  Mitchellstow^n  not  a  word  was  said.  The 
subject  was  too  terrible  for  talk. 

"It  is  impossible  to  make  an  American  comprehend 
the  width,  deptli,  and  breadth  of  Irish  misery  until  he 


158 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


l]as  seen  it  with  his  own  eves.  No  other  man's  eves 
are  good  for  anything  in  this  matter,  for  the  reason 
that  nothing  parallel  exists  this  side  of  the  water.  And 
besides  this,  the  writers  for  the  stage  and  of  general 
literature  have  most  wofully  misrepresented  the  Irish 
man  and  woman,  and  very  mucli  to  his  and  her  disad- 
vantage. The  Irisiiman  is  the  saddest  man  on  the  face 
of  the  globe.  You  may  travel  a  week  and  never  see  a 
smile  or  hear  a  laugh.  Utter  and  abject  misery,  starva- 
tion, and  helplessness  are  not  conducive  of  merriment. 
The  Irishman  has  not  only  no  short- tailed  coat,  but  he 
considers  himself  fortunate  if  he  has  anv  coat  at  all. 
He  has  what  bv  courtesv  mav  be  called  trousers,  but 
the  vest  is  a  mvtli.  lie  has  no  comfortable  woolen 
stockings,  nor  is  he  possessed  of  the  regulation  stnge- 
shoes.  He  does  not  sing,  dance,  or  laugh,  for  he  has 
no  place  to  sing,  laugh,  and  dance  in.  He  is  a  moving 
pyramid  of  rags.  A  man  who  cuts  bog  all  da}'  from 
daylight  to  dark,  whose  diet  consists  of  a  few  potatoes 
twice  a  day,  is  not  much  in  the  humor  for  dancing  all 
night,  even  were  there  a  place  for  him  to  dance  in. 
And  as  for  jollity,  a  man  with  a  land  agent  watching 
him  like  a  hawk  to  see  how  much  he  is  improving  his 
land,  with  the  charitable  intent  of  raising  the  rent,  if 
by  any  possibility  he  can  screw  it  out  of  him,  is  not  in 
the  mood  to  laugh,  sing,  dance,  or  'hurroo.'  One 
might  as  well  think  of  laughing  at  a  funeral.  Ire- 
land is  one  perpetual  funeral.  The  ghastly  procession 
is  constantly  passing.  There  is  unquestionably  a  vast 
fund  of  humor  in  the  Irishman,  which  would  be  de- 
lightful, could  it  have  proper  vent  You  hear  faint 
tones  of  it  as  it  is,  but  it  is  in  the  minor  key,  and 
very  bad.  It  always  has  a  flavor  of  rack-rent  in  it, 
a  tasie  of  starvation,  a  suggestion  of  eviction  and 
death  by  cold  and  hunger  on  the  roadside.    It  Isn't 


IIEII  Wr.ETCIIED  CONDITION". 


159 


clieerfal.    I  had  nmcli  rather  have  the  Irishman  silent 
than  to  hear  this  remnant  of  jocukirity  which  is  always 
streaked,  with  blood.    The  Irish  girl  is  always  comely, 
and,  properly  clothed  and  fed,  would  be  beautiful. 
Still  she  is  comely.    Irish  landlordism  has  not  been 
sufficient  to  destroy  her  beauty,  though  it  has  done  its 
best.    But  she  has  no  gown  of  woolen  stuff — a  cotton 
slipj  without  underclothing  of  any  kind,  makes  up  her 
costume.    The  comfortable  stockings  and  stout  shoes, 
and  the  red  kerchief  about  her  neck,  are  so  many  libels 
upon  Irish  landlordism.    Were  my  lord's  agent  to  see 
such  clothing  upon  a  girl  he  would  immediately  raise 
the  rent  upon  her  father  and  confiscate  those  clothes. 
And  he  would  keep  on  raising  the  rent  till  he  was  cer- 
tain that  shoes  and  stockings  would  be  forever  impos- 
sible. ,  Neither  does  she  dance  Pat  down  at  rustic  balls, 
for  a  most  excellent  reason — there  are  no  balls — and 
besides,  when  she  has  cut  and  dried  a  donkey-load  of 
peat,  and  walked  beside  that  donkey,  barefooted,  in 
the  cold  mud,  twelve  miles  and'  back  again,  and  sold 
that  peat  for  sixpence,  she  is  not  very  much  in  the 
humor  for  dancing  down  anv  one.    On  the  contrary, 
she  is  mighty  glad  to  get  into  her  wretched  bed  of  dry 
leaves  and  pull  over  her  the  potato-sack  which  consti- 
tutes her  sole  covering,  and  soothed  to  sleep  by  the 
gruntings  of  the  pigs  in  the  wretched  cabin,  forget 
landlords  and  rent,  and  go  off  into  the  land  of  happi 
ness,  which,  to  her,  is  America.    She  finds  in  sleep 
surcease  of  sorrow,  and  besides,  it  refreshes  her  to  the 
degree  of  walking  barefooted  througli  the  mud  twenty 
four  miles  on  the  morrow,  to  sell  another  load  of  peat 
for  sixpence,  that  she  may  pay  more  money  to  my  lord, 
whose  town-house  in  London,  and  whose  mistresses  in 
Paris,  require  a  great  deal  of  money.    Chamiiagne  and 
the  delicacies  of  the  season  are  always  exx)ensive,  and 


\ 


160 


lEELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


my  lord's  appetite,  and  tlie  appetite  of  Lis  wife  and 
mistresses,  and  his  children,  legitimate  and  illegitimate, 
are  delicate.  Clearly,  Katy  is  in  no  humor  for  dancing. 
She  has  her  share  to  contribute  to  all  these  objects. 
And  so  she  eats  her  meal  of  potatoes  or  stirabout  (she 
never  has  both  at  once),  and  goes  into  sleep  and  dreams. 

As  to  the  priest,  there  never  was  a  wilder  delusion 
than  exists  in  the  mind  of  the  American  people  con- 
cerning him.  I  was  at  the  houses,  or  rather  lodgfngs, 
of  a  great  many  of  them,  but  one  example  will  suffice. 
Half-wav  between  Kenmare  and  Killarnev,  in  a  wild, 
desolate  country,  lives  one  of  these  parish  priests  who 
are  supposed  to  inhabit  luxurious  houses,  and  to  live 
gorgeously,  and  to  be  perpetually  singing  the '  Cruiskeen 
Lawn,'  with  a  pipe  in.  one  hand  and  a  glass  of  pottetn 
in  the  other.  He  is  a  magnificent  man.  In  face  and 
figure  he  is  the  exact  x^ictwre  of  the  lamented  Salmon 
P.  Chase,  one  of  the  greatest  of  Americans,  and  I 
venture  the  assertion  that  had  he  adopted  any  other 
profession,  and  come  to  America,  where  genius  and  in- 
tellect mean  something,  and  where  great  ability  finds 
great  rewards,  he  would  have  been  one  of  the  most 
eminent  of  men.  A  man  of  great  learning,  of  wonderful 
intuitions,  of  cool,  clear  judgment,  of  great  nevre  and 
unbounded  heart,  he  would,  were  he  to  come  to 
America  and  drop  his  priestly  robes,  be  president  of  a 
great  railroad  corporation,  or  a  senator,  or  anything 
else  he  chose  to  be.  But  what  is  he  in  Ireland?  His 
apartments  comprise  a  bedroom,  just  large  enough  to 
hold  a  very  poor  bed,  and  a  study,  in  a  better-class 
farm-house,  for  which  he  pays  rent  the  same  as  every- 
body else  does.  His  floor  is  uncarpeted,  and  the  entire 
furniture  of  his  rooms,  leaving  out  his  library,  would 
not  invoice  810.  His  parish  is  one  of  the  wildest  and 
bleakest  in  Ireland,  and  is  twenty-five  miles  long  and 


HER  WRETCHED  CONDITION. 


161 


eighteen  wide.  He  has  to  conduct  services  at  all  the 
chapels  in  this  stretch  of  country.  He  has  to  watch 
over  the  morals  of  all  the  people;  but  this  is  not  all. 
No  matter  at  what  hour  of  night,  no  matter  what  the 
condition  of  the  weather,  the  summons  to  the  bedside 
of  a  dving  man  to  administer  the  last  sacraments  of 
the  Church  must  be  obeyed.  It  may  be  that  to  do 
this  requires  a  ride  on  horseback  of  twenty  miles  in  a 
blinding  storm,  but  it  must  be  done.  Every  child  must 
be  christened,  every  death-bed  must  be  soothed,  every 
sorrow  mitigated  by  the  only  comfort  this  suffering 
people  have — the  faith  in  their  Church.  What  do  you 
suppose  this  magnificent  man  gets  for  all  this?  The 
largest  income  life  ever  received  in  his  life  was  £100, 
which,  reduced  to  American  money,  amounts  to  exactly 
$181.  And  out  of  this  he  has  to  pay  his  rent,  his  food, 
his  clothing,  the  keeping  of  his  horse,  and  all  that  re- 
mains goes  in  charity  to  the  snffering  sick — every 
penny  of  it.  When  the  Father  dies  his  nephews  and 
nieces  will  not  find  very  good  picking  from  what  is  left, 
ass'ure  you." 

Ireland's  claims  upon  America. 

Nine  hundred  years  before  Columl^ns  pointed  his  cara- 
vels westward  the  Irish  sailor  St.  Brendan  had  reported 
the  discovery  of  a  great  land  across  the  Atlantic.  The 
Norsemen  knew  of  it  and  called  it  Irland  it  Milda,  the 
Greater  Ireland.  The  Italian  geographers  knew  of 
it,  and  Toscanelli,  on  the  map  which  was  prepared 
expressly  for  the  first  voyage  of  Columbus,  marked  it 

Terra  dl  San  Boroiidon''  St.  Brendan  s  Land;  audit 
is  recorded  that  the  first  of  Columbus's  sailors  who  set 
foot  upon  the  new  world  was  named  Patrick  Maguire. 
More  Irishmen  followed.    In  1G49,  45,000  came,  driven 


162 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


out  of  Ireland  by  the  Cromwellian  persecutions.  In 
1689  an  Irish  colony  came  to  Maryland,  among  them 
the  Carroll  family,  from  whom  descended  the  great 
Archbishop  Carroll  and  the  statesman,  Charles  Carroll 
of  Carroll  ton.  In  1689  they  colonized  North  Carolina, 
and  in  seven  years  after  one  of  their  number,  Mr.  James 
Moore,  led  the  people  in  revolt  against  the  oi)pressions 
of  the  proprietary  government,  established  their  inde- 
pendence, and  was  honored  by  the  people  in  being 
elected  Governor,  the  first  i:)eople's  Governor  of  North 
Carolina.'^ 

In  1699  a  large  Irisli  emigration  came  to  Pennsylvania, 
which  gave  to  America  man}^  of  the  leaders  in  the  move- 
ment for  American  independence.  In  1710  the}^  came 
to  Virginia  and  established  there  the  McDonnells, 
Breckenridges,  McDuffies,  Magruders,  and  McKennas 
of  that  State. 

In  1729  at  Philadelphia  the  Irish  arrivals  outnumbered 
ten  to  one  all  others  from  Europe  combined.  In  that 
year  they  came  also  to  Cape  Cod;  with  them  Charles 
Clinton,  grandfather  of  De  AVitt  Clinton,  who,  wtiile 
governor  of  New  York,  built  the  Erie  Canal,  which 
was  completed  in  1825. 

In  1737  they  colonized  South  Carolina,  and  gave  to 
this  country  Rutledge,  Calhoun,  and  later,  Andrew 
Jackson,  that  "Old  Hickory"  Andrew  Jackson  whom 
you  know  some  folks  are  voting  for  yet  for  President. 
One  of  the  early  South  Carolina  historians  said  that: 
"Of  all  other  countries  none  has  furnished  the  prov- 
ince with  so  many  inhabitants  as  Ireland." 

In  1746  they  went  in  great  numbers  with  Boone  and 
settled  Kentucky,  and  the  most  popular  soldier  in  that 
land  in  the  early  days  was  Major  Hugh  McGrady. 

From  the  earliest  days  they  had  been  settling  in  all 
die  other  States.    Victims,  all  of  them,  in  a  strictly 

*  From  E.  F.  Eunne's  Lecture  on  Ireland. 


HER  CLAJMS  ON  AMERICA. 


163 


personal  sense,  of  English  injustice,  you  may  imagine 
they  were  foremost  and  loudest  in  the  call  for  American 
independence.  It  is  admitted  that  the  Irish  John 
Rutledge  ''was  the  first  man  whose  eloquence  roused 
South  Carolina  to  the  level  of  resistance."  ^yllen  the 
Stamp  Act  was  passed,  Dr.  Franklin,  communicating 
from  London  with  Charles  Thompson,  one  of  the  Irish 
settlers  of  Pennsylvania,  afterwards  Secretary  of  the 
Continental  Congress,  wrote:  "  The  sun  of  liberty  is 
set.  The  Americans  must  light  now  the  lamps  of  in- 
dustry and  economy."  But  Thompson,  like  a  genuine 
Celt,  sent  back  the  ringing  answer:  "Be  assured  that 
we  shall  light  torches  of  quite  a  different  sort."  John 
Hancock,  whose  magnificent  autograph  marshals  the 
signatures  to  the  Declaration  like  a  standard-bearer  at 
the  head  of  a  column,  was  the  son  of  Honora  O'  Flaherty, 
and  his  people  were  lords  in  Gal  way  for  centuries  ber 
fore  their  advent  in  America. 

Ireland  was  w^ell  represented  in  the  Continental 
Congress,  and  among  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  as  well  as  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States. 

One-sixth  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration,  and  one- 
sixth  of  the  signers  of  the  Constitution  that  we  know  of, 
were  Irishmen. 

I  have  led  you  one  by  one  through  all  these  facts,  that 
you  may  be  the  better  prepared  for  the  more  astonish- 
ing declaration  I  am  about  to  make. 

Of  the  Continental  army  which  achieved  the  indepen- 
dence  of  the  United  States,  one-third  of  the  active  officers 
and  one-half  of  the  rank  and  file  were  of  Irish  birth  or 
immediate  Irish  descent. 

The  first  Secretary  of  War  of  the  United  States  was 
General  Henry  Knox,  an  Irishman. 

One  of  the  first  brigadier-generals  of  the  Continental 


164  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

.  army  was  General  Sullivan,  a  son  of  an  Irish  school- 
master of  Limerick.  Another  was  Richaid  Montgomery, 
of  New  York,  an  Irishman.  The  celebrated  *'Mad 
Anthonv"  Wavne,  so  famous  as  the  Murat  of  the 
American  army,  was  an  Irishman.  The  man  who, 
answering  the  anxious  inquiry  as  to  whether  it  was 
I)ossible  to  capture  a  certain  fort,  said:  "I'll  take  it 
to-night  or  MoUv  Stark  will  be  a  widow  in  the  morn- 
ing,''  was  Major-General  John  Stark,  an  Irishman  from 
Londonderry.  Hand,  Mo\'lan,  Dillon,  and  lifty  more 
were  all  Irish. 

Ireland  was  represented  in  the  navy,  too.  The  first 
naval  capture  made  in  the  name  of  the  United  States 
(vas  by  O'Brien,  from  Cork.  Fenimore  Cooper,  in  his 
Listorv  of  the  navy,  calls  it  the  Lexinsrton  of  the  seas: 
the  fi?^st  blow  struck  on  the  water  after  the  war  of  the 
revolution  had  actuallj' commenced."  The  first  com. 
modore  of  the  American  navv  was  John  Barrv,  from 
Wexford,  where  he  lived  almost  to  manhood  before  he 
came  to  America.  One  of  Bavry^ s  proteges  in  the  navy 
was  an  Irishman,  who  afterwards  became  Admiral 
Stewart,  whose  grandson,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell,  is 
not  unknown  to  Irishmen. 

Washington  not  only  understood  the  composition  of 
bis  army,  but  fully  appreciated  the  loyalty  of  his  Irish 
troops.  When  that  terrible  night  came  when  every- 
'  thing  depended  on  the  fidelit}^  of  tliesentries,  he  issued 
the  celebrated  order,  ''Put  none  but  Irish  or  Ameri- 
cans on  guard  to-night."  And  he  put  the  Irish  first, 
where  they  are  generally  found  when  there  is  any 
lighting  to  be  done  Some  so-called  historians  have 
been  base  enongli  to  drop  the  word  "Irish"  in  quoting 
this  order,  but  the  original  is  still  preserved  in  Wash- 
ington, and  stands  there  as  one  of  the  grandest  com- 
pliments ever  paid  to  the  Irish  race. 


HER  CLAIMS  ON  AMERICA.  165 

"Nor  was  it  in  America  alone  that  the  Irish  race  an- 
swered the  call  I'or  aid.  The  Irish  Brigade  in  the 
service  of  France  sought  and  obtained  permission  to 
light  the  English  in  America,  and  on  Southern  battle- 
fields shed  their  blood  in  behalf  of  American  liberty  as 
freely  as  did  their  brethren  in  the  North.  Ireland  liad 
her  own  Parliament  at  Dublin  then,  and  though  sitting 
almost  within  the  range  of  English  guns,  its  House  of 
Commons  not  only  refused  to  vote  the  45,000  men  de- 
manded to  fight  against  America,  but,  with  character- 
istic Irish  audacity,  passed  Mr.  Daly's  resolution  calling 
upon  the  King  to  discontinue  the  ^?ar. 

In  the  English  Parliament,  bearding  the  lion  in  his 
den,  the  Irish  orators,  Barry,  Burke,  and  Sheridan, 
plead  for  American  freedom  in  words  of  such  magnifi- 
cent eloquence  that  they  are  handed  down  fronk  gene- 
ration to  generation  in  the  school-books  of  this  land 
as  the  grandest  utterances  ever  delivered  in  behalf  of 
American  liberty. 

Of  course  we  boast  of  all  this.  Why  should  we  not  ? 
Is  it  not  something  for  Irishmen  to  be  proud  of,  that 
American  patriotism  was  roused  in  great  part  by  Irish 
eloquence,  American  liberty  proclaimed  in  great  part 
by  Irish  representatives,  and  American  independence 
achieved  in  great  part  by  Irish  arms? 

So  much  importance  did  America  at  one  time  attach 
to  the  Irish  people,  that  the  first  Continental  Congress 
sent  an  address  to  them — not  to  Irishmen  in  America, 
no  appeal  to  them  was  necessary — but  to  the  Irish  peo- 
ple in  Ireland,  explaining  to  them  that  America  had 
no  hostility  to  Ireland  itself,  but  only  to  England. 

Franklin,  wliile  on  his  diplomatic  mission  to  Europe, 
visited  Ireland  to  obtain  the  sympathy  of  the  Irish 
people,  and  reported  from  London,  saying:  "  I  found 
them  disx^osed  to  be  friends  of  America,  in  which  I  en- 


166 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


deavored  to  confirm  them,  Avitli  the  expectat-ion  that 
our  growing  weight  might  in  time  be  thrown  into  their 
scale,  and  by  joining  our  interests  with  theirs  a  more 
equitable  treatment  from  this  nation  (England)  might 
be  obtained  for  them,  as  well  as  for  us." 

We  could  go  on  for  pages  citing  the  services  ren- 
dered by  Irishmen  to  America.  Ireland  accepted  the 
pledge  of  America,  and  declared  itself  for  American 
independence.  England  was  obliged  to  recognize  the 
American  Parliament,  but  she  glutted  her  vengeance 
on  Ireland.  She  quickly  destroyed  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment, and  did  her  best  to  destroy  the  Irish  people. 

We  are  taught  thus,  even  by  tradition,  to  look  to 
the  West  for  help,  and,  through  the  blood  of  Erin's  sons 
shed  for  liberty  here,  we  have  a  ri<z:ht  to  demand  it. 
And,  oh !  my  brothers,  in  this  struggle,  let  us  be  care- 
ful where  we  seek  for  aid.  After  the  mercy  of  God, 
the  justice  of  our  cause,  and  the  valor  of  our  race,  let 
us  put  our  trust  in  this  gallant  land  of  freedom,  clos- 
ing our  ears  to  the  whisperings  of  that  dark,  malignant 
power  which  is  corrupting  the  suffering  people  of  every 
land  in  Europe,  aye  !  even  our  own. 

Let  us  put  our  trust  in  this  great  American  nation, 
whose  land  we  were  the  first  to  discover;  whose  soil 
we  were  among  the  first  to  possess;  whose  liberty  we 
were  among  the  first  to  proclaim;  whose  independence 
we  were  among  the  first  to  achieve;  whose  Constitution 
we  were  among  the  first  to  form,  and  whose  Union  our 
Corcorans  and  Meaghei's  and  Shields  and  Sheridans, 
with  half  a  millon  Irish  soldiers  at  their  backs,  were 
among  the  foremost  to  preserve. 

Let  us  remember  that  wlien  the  sun  of  the  Roman 
Empire  went  down  in  barbarian  darkness  it  was  our 
land  that  held  aloft  the  beacon-light  of  knowledge, 
civilization,  refinement,  eloquence,  poetry,  and  art,  all 


COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION.  167 

crowned  with  the  supernatural  glory  of  the  Christian 
faith,  and  that  as  sons  of  that  glorious  land  it  is  our 
duty  to  watch  with  jealous  care  that  the  shining 
splendor  of  that  ancient  record  receive  now  no  blot  or 
blemish. 


CHAPTER  IX. 

COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION. 

Persecutions  and  Confiscations — Coercion  since  the 
Union — The  Wretched  Condition  of  the  Country — 
How  Ireland  is  Governed — Evictions  in  Ireland — 
The  Bight  of  Self-government. 

It  is  often  vaguely  said  that  Ireland  since  the  ruinous 
Union,  January  1, 1801,  has  been  aim  osteons  tan  tly  under 
a  regime  of  coercion  more  or  less  severe;  but  probably 
few  persons  are  aware  of  the  exact  facts  in  this  connec- 
tion, and  it  may.  therefore,  be  well  to  recapitulate  them 
here  just  now,  when  one  other  Coercion  Act — and  that, 
perhaps,  the  very  worst  and  most  severe  of  all — has  been 
added  to  the  long  roll  of  similar  statutes  passed  by  the 
British  Parliament.  The  recital  will  be,  from  more  than 
one  point  of  view,  highly  instructive  and  suggestive. 

Sir  Robert  Peel  stated,  in  the  course  of  the  debates 
in  1829  on  the  question  of  Catholic  Emancipation,  that 
since  1800  up  to  that  time  there  had  scarcely  been  one 
year  in  which  Ireland  was  governed  by  the  ordinary 
law.  The  statement  was  literally  correct.  Indeed,  the 
Tory  leader  miglit  liavegone  further  and  asserted  with- 
out any  reservation  tliat  there  had  been  no  year  what- 
ever within  the  period  specified  in  which  the  ordinary 
law  alone  had  prevailed  in  this  country;  for  if  a 


168  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 

Coercion  Act  wer,e  not  passed  every  year  of  that  period, 
some  of  the  acts  that  did  obtain  the  sanction  of  the 
Parliament  were  in  operation  for  two  or  more  years. 
Exclusive  of  enactments  for  prohibiting  the  importation 
of  arms  and  gunpowder,  the  following  is  a  list  of  the 
coercive  measures  adopted  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
century  for  putting  down  crime  and  maintaining  peace 
and  order  in  Ireland: 

1796-  1802— Insurrection  Act. 

1797-  1802 — Habeas  Corpus  suspended 
1803-1805— Martial  Law. 
1803-1806— Habeas  Corpus  suspended. 
1807-1810— Insurrection  Act. 
1814-1818— Insurrection  Act. 
1822-1823— Insurrection  Act. 

1822-  1823 — Habeas  Corpus  suspended. 

1823-  1825— Insurrection  Act. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  stay  to  explain  that  the 
provisions  of  such  measures  as  the  Insurrection  Act 
were  savage  in  the  extreme.  They  were  just  as  severe 
as  might  have  been  adopted  in  a  country  newly  con- 
quered, and  towards  a  population  ready  at  any  moment 
to  rise  in  revolt.  It  was  supj^osed  at  last  in  1829,  as  it 
was  so  often  supposed  afterwards,  that  remedial  meas- 
ures would  in  a  short  time  obviate  the  necessitv  for 
further  coercion — that,  in  other  words,  if  some  conces- 
sions were  then  made  to  the  Irish  popular  demands, 
the  Irish  peoi^le  would  thereafter  settle  down  content- 
edly as  members  of  "the  great  British  Empire,"  and 
that,  therefore,  it  would  be  no  longer  necessary  to  hold 
them  down  by  force.  Accordingly  the  Emancipation 
Act  was  passed.  But  emancipation  did  not  put  an  end 
to  coercion.  After  that  event,  as  well  as  before  it,  the 
English  government  contrived  or  jiretended  to  find 
overwhelming  cause  for  continuing  the  coercion  regime. 


COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION. 


169 


Nay,  then  more  than  ever  did  the  English  statesmen 
of  the  time  profess  to  think  it  necessary  for  the  safety 
of  the  empire  that  tlie  Irish  people  should  be  kept 
bound  hand  and  foot,  and  llieir  opinion,  moreover, 
seems  to  have  been  shared  by  all  the  successors  v^^hom 
they  have  had  during  the  last  half  century.  The  follow- 
ing is  a  complete  list  of  the  Coercion  Acts  passed  for 
Ireland  from  1880  to  1882. 

1830—  Importation  of  Arms  Act. 

1831—  Wliiteboy  Act. 

1831 —  Arms  Act. 

1832—  Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder. 

1833—  Lord  Grey's  Coercion  Act. 

1833 —  Change  of  Venue. 

1834—  Suppression  of  Disturbances  Amendment  and  Continuance 

1834 —  Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder. 

1835 —  Public  Peace. 

183G — Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder. 

1838—  Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder. 

1839—  Unlawful  Oaths. 

1840 —  Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder. 

1841 —  Houghing  of  Cattle,  etc 

1841 — Importation  of  Arms  and  Gunpowder. 

1843 —  A  Consolidiition  Act 

1844 —  Unlawful  Oaths  Continuance.  * 

1845 —  Additional  Constables  near  Public  Wor'is. 
1845- Unlawful  Oaths  Amendment  and  Continuance 
184G — Constabulary  Force  Enlargement,  etc. 

1847 —  Crime  and  Outrage. 

1848 —  Treason  Amendment. 
1848 — Removal  of  Aliens. 

1848 — Habeas  Corpus  Suspension. 

1848—  Unlawful  Oaths  Amendment  and  Continuance, 

1849 —  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension. 

1850—  Crime  and  Outrage  Continuance. 

1851—  Unlawful  Oaths  Contmuance.  * 

1852—  Crime  and  Outrage  Continuance. 

1853 —  Crime  and  Outrage  Continuance. 

1854 —  Crime  and  Outrage  Continuance. 

1855 —  Crime  and  Outraire  Continuance. 
1853— Peace  Prescrvatioji. 


170 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


1856 — Unlawful  Oaths  Amendment  and  Continuance. 
1858 — Peace  Preservation  Continuance  Act. 
1860 — Peace  Preservation  Amendment  Act. 
1862 — Peace  Preservation  Continuance  Act. 
1862 — Unlawful  Oaths  Continuance  Act. 

1865 —  Peace  Preservation  Continuance. 

1866—  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension, 

1867 —  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension. 
1867 — Habeas  Corpus  Suspension. 

1867 —  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension.  % 

1868 —  Habeas  Corpus  Suspension. 

1870 —  Peace  Preservation. 

1871 —  Protection  of  Life  and  Property,  and  Peace  Preservation  Con- 
tinuauce. 

1873 — Peace  Preservation  and  Protection  of  Life  and  Property  Con- 
tinuance. 

j  Peace  Preservation. 
1875 —  (  Unlawful  Oaths  Continuance. 

j  Life  and  Property  Protection  Act. 

1881 —  i  Peace  Preservation  Act. 

1882 —  Prevention  of  Crime  Act. 

From  the  foregoing,  then,  it  will  be  observed  that  in 
the  last  fifrv-two  vears  there  have  been  exactly  tifty 
Coercion  Acts!  It  is  true  that  there  were  fifteen  years 
out  of  the  fifty- two  in  which  the  London  Parliament  was 
not  1:roubled  with  an  Irish  Coercion  Bill;  but,  on  the 
other  hand,  there  were  several  years  in  each  of  which 
it  was  troubled  with  two  or  more  such  measures,  and  all 
but  a  very  few  of  the  fifry-two  acts  were  enacted  for  more 
than  one  year.  Thus  the  act  of  1875  did  not  expire  till 
the  summer  of  1880.  The  result,  on  the  whole,  is  that 
there  liave  not  been  five  years  in  the  last  fifty-two  in 
which  some,  and,  generally  speaking,  the  greater  part 
of  Ireland  has  not  been  governed  by  repressive  laws. 

The  Coercion  Bill  lately  passed  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons is  regarded  by  many  as  the  most  severe  ever 
brou2:ht  forward,  but  it  is  so  only  in  the  sense  that  it 
comprises  in  itself  all  the  worst  provisions  of  all  it^ 
predecessors.    It  contains,  we  think,   scarcely  one 


COEECIOIT  AND  OPPEESSION. 


171 


single  provision  which  cannot  already  be  found  in  the 
statute-book.  For  examx)le,  the  following  summary, 
given  by  Mr.  Leadam  in  a  pamphlet  published  in  Lon- 
don a  short  time  since,  of  the  provisions  of  the  act  of 

1833,  shows  that  more  than  one  of  the  clauses  of  the 
new  measure  have  been  suggested  by,  if  not  actually 
copied  from,  the  code  of  Lord  Grey  and  Mr.  Stanley: 

The  bill  which  proposed  to  deal  with  these  disorders 
consisted  of  many  stringent  provisions.  It  proposed 
to  empower  the  Lord-Lieutenant  to  prohibit  or  sup- 
press meetings,  and  enacted  that  all  persons  attending 
a  meeting  so  prohibited  should  be  guilty  of  misde- 
meanor. The  Lord-Lieutenant  might  "  proclaim"  a  dis- 
trict in  a  disturbed  state.  In  proclaimed  districts  the 
tenants  of  houses  were  bound,  under  penalties  of  mis- 
demeanor, to  affix  to  their  houses  lists  of  all  male  oc- 
cupants, distinguishing  their  ages,  which  should  be, 
countersigned  by  tlie  constable.  Special  license  was 
requisite  from  the  Lord-Lieutenant  for  any  meeting, 
even  for  petitioning  Parliament.  The  Lord-Lieutenant 
was  to  be  empowered  to  constitute  courts-martial  for 
the  trial  of  offenses,  their  sentences  to  be  restricted  to 
transportation.  Persons  found  out  of  their  houses 
under  suspicious  circumstances  in  a  proclaimed  dis- 
trict after  sunset  were  to  be  guilty  of  a  misdemeanor. 
The  unauthorized  possession  of  arms  was  similarly 
X)enal;  as  also  the  assisting  by  signals  in  the  warning 
of  unlawful  assemblies.  The  Habeas  Corpus  was  in 
effect  suspended  in  proclaimed  districts  under  the  29tli 
and  3()th  section  of  the  statute;  but  it  was  provided 
that  all  persons  apprehended  should  be  brought  to 
trial  within  three  months  or  discharged  from  confine- 
ment.   The  act  was  to  remain  in  force  until  August  1st, 

1834.  This  act,  which  Lord  Brougham,  who  assisted 
in  its  preparation,  afterwards  described  as  "one  of  the 


172  IKELAXD,  PAST  AND  PKESE^CT. 

most  stringent  Coercion  Bills  tliat  ever  existed  in  this 
country  towards  Ireland,"  was  not  the  sole  measure  of 
its  kind.  There  was  passed  a  Venue  Bill,  permitting 
trials  "  upon  indictments  to  be  removed  into  an  adjoin- 
ing county  or  to  Dublin."  This  measure,  which  was 
in  effect  a  reenactment  of  several  previous  statutes,  was 
to  expire  with  the  Coercion  Bill  in  a  year's  time.  It 
was,  however,  subsequenth'  continued  until  1S40. 

Other  provisions  of  the  new  bill  are  plainly  copied 
from  the  act  of  1870  and  1871,  of  which  an  excellent 
popular  account  was  given  in  a  speech  delivered  on  the 
24:th  June,  1873,  at  a  meeting  of  the  Home  Government 
Association,  by  Mr.  John  O.  Blunden,  B.  L.,  and 
afterwards  reprinted  in  a  pamphlet.  The  following  is 
an  extract  from  Mr.  Blunden' s  speech^  in  which  he 
sums  up  some  of  the  more  outrageous  clauses  of  the 
enactment  with  which  he  dealt: 

*'It  is  a  fundamental  principle  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution that  a  man  shall  be  allowed  to  carry  arms. 
Under  the  acts  to  which  I  have  to-dav  called  vour 
attention,  I  would  be  liable  to  imprisonment  were  I  to 
attempt  to  carry  arms  for  my  self-defense,  no  matter 
what  dangerous  localitj^  I  might  have  to  go  into.  I 
would  equally  be  liable  to  imj^risonment  were  I  to  keep 
arms  in  my  house  for  its  protection.  If  ever  there  was 
a  principle  dear  to  every  Englishmen,  it  is  that  there 
shall  be  a  free  press.  Here  the  Lord-Lieutenant  has  ab- 
solute, unconditional  power  to  suppress  any  newspaper 
he  pleases,  and  no  matter  howMincalled-for  or  tyrannical 
any  such  suppression  may  be,  the  proprietor  of  the 
suppressed  paper  cannot  take  any  proceedings  to  re- 
cover his  property.  His  paj^er,  from  which,  in  all  i^ro- 
bability,  he  derived  his  livelihood,  is  gone  forever.  I 
do  not  believe  that  there  lives  an  Englishman  in  whom 
there  exists  the  faintest  spark  of  manhood,  who  would 


COERCION  AND  OPPPvfZSSION. 


173 


not  die  rather  than  give  up  the  grand  old  principle — 
the  fundamental  one  of  all  libert}^ — that  no  man  shall 
be  imprisoned  or  sentenced  without  a  fair  trial.  By 
.  the  provisions  of  the  33  Yic.  c.  9,  a  man  may  be  arrested 
on  siispicion  of  being  a  sus^^icious  character,  and  under 
the  West  Meath  Coercion  Act  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
lias  power  to  send  an}^  one  he  likes  to  jail  without  trial, 
and  keep  him  there  as  long  as  he  pleases.  It  is  a  well 
known  maxim  of  English  law  that  a  man's  house  is  his 
csfstle.  By  Irish  coercion  law,  a  jiol iceman  can  break 
into  a  house  at  any  hour  of  the  day  or  night,  under 
the  excuse  (real  or  pretended)  of  searching  for  arms. 
In  England  the  people's  liberties  are  i^rotected  by  the 
'  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  In  Ireland  that  act  has  been  sus- 
pended at  least  eleven  times  (and  I  think  of  tener)  since 
the  Union;  and,  whether  it  is  suspended  or  not,  it  is 
utterly  useless  and  powerless  by  Coercion  Acts.  Xo 
more  perfect  network  of  coercive  legislation  could  be 
invented  by  any  government,  for  the  purpose  of  crush- 
ing out  of  a  country  anything  approaching  even  the 
verv  semblance  of  liber r v." 

The  act  of  1871  also  contained,  as  the  new  bill  con- 
tains, a  clause  making  it  an  offense  punishable  by 
imprisonment  to  be  found  out  of  one's  house  after  a 
certain  hour  at  night  in  a  proclaimed  district,  and  Mr. 
•  Blunden's  comments  on  this  j^rovision  are  so  appropriate 
to  the  present  occasion  that  we  gladly  reproduce  them. 
Having  quoted  the  words  of  the  clause,  he  spoke  as 
follows : 

"]S"ow  I  crave  your  attention  specially  to  the  words, 
'If  upon  such  hearing  the  justices  shall  believe  that 
such  person  teas  not  old  of  Ms  oicn  Jioiise  upon  some 
lawful  occasion.'  Do  you  comprehend  the  full  import 
of  these  words?  Why  are  thev  not,  as  one  would 
naturally  expect,  'believe  that  such  person  icas  out  oi 


174 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


his  house  upon  some  unlawful  occasion'?  The  answer 
is  manifest.  In  order,  contrarj^  to  every  principle  of 
law  and  justice,  to  throw  the  onus  of  proof,  not  on  the 
accuser,  but  on  the  accused.  Was  there  ever  such  a 
monstrous  law?    Who  is  to  be  the  iudi^e  in  the  liist 

•I  o 

instance  of  suspicious  circumstances  ?  A  policeman  or 
^oilier  person.'  What  is  the  charge?  Suspicion  of 
being  suspicious.  What  is  the  offense?  The  'person' 
disobeyed  the  law  in  not  making  himself  a  prisoner 
in  his  house  or  miserable  cabin.  And  what  about 
the  unfortunates  ^vho  have  no  home  ?  To  the  poor- 
house  with  them,  or,  better  still,  to  Jail.  WIjo  are 
to  be  the  witnesses  for  the  prosecution?  They  are  not  re- 
quired ;  the  law  throws  ux)on  the  prisoner  the  onus  of 
proof,  or  rather  of  disproof.  And  what,  finally,  is  the 
result?  That  no  man  dare  leave  his  cottage  within  the 
stated  hours  without  rendering  himself  liable  to  arrest 
in  any  case,  to  imprisonment  unless  he  is  prepared  with 
proof  that  he  was  out  upon  a  'lawful  occasion' — proof 
to  satisfy  a  court  with  which  the  whisper  of  a  police- 
man is  likely  to  have  a  thousand  times  more  weight 
than  the  oaths  of  one  hundred  peasants.  The  farm- 
laborer  going  to  his  work  is  liable  to  arrest.  The  farmer 
going  to  a  fair  in  early  morn  is  liable  to  arrest.  He  is 
liable  to  arrest  on  his  return,  should  he  be  detained 
there  till  late.  The  people's  liberty  is  in  the  hands  of 
the  police.  No  jury  to  weigh  evidence — no  appeal.  It 
has  been  often  said  that  history  repeats  itself,  but  we 
would  have  to  go  back  to  the  time  of  William  the  Con- 
queror and  his  curfew  laws  to  find  a  parallel  for  this 
piece  of  legislation." 

It  may  be  well  to  add  that  this  very  comprehensive 
act — that,  namely,  which  w^as  passed  eleven  years  ago 
under  the  auspices  of  the  same  man  who  is  now  Prime 
Minister — contained  also  a  jirovision  against  strangers 


COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION.  175 

sojourning  or  wandering  in  any  district  specially  pro 
claimed,  and  gave  to  the  magistrates,  as  it  is  now  pro 
posed  to  give  tliem,  power  to  deal  in  a  summary  way 
with  specially  created  offenses. 

Nothing  very  new,  it  thus  appears,  will  be  found  in 
the  latest  Coercion  Bill;  its  authors,  we  repeat,  have 
simply  ransacked  the  records  of  all  similar  legislative 
achievements,  extracted  therefrom  all  that  was  particu- 
larly drastic  in  character,  and  tlien  put  the  clauses 
thus  obtained — the  quintessence  of  fifty  measures  of 
coercion — into  one  measure,  which  they  have  called  by 
the  euphemistic  name  of  ''The  Prevention  of  Crime 
(Ireland)  Bill."    Nor  are  the  excuses  for  passing  such  a 
code  different  now  from  what  they  have  always  been 
in  the  past.    Xo  quarrel,  we  are  told,  have  the  English 
people,  or  the  English  government,  with  the  Irish 
nation;  but,  it  is , added,  a  band  of  lawless  men  in 
Ireland  are  threatening  the  stability  of  the  state,  and 
to  crush  them  the  whole  Irish  people  must  for  a  time — 
it  is  always  only  "for  a  time" — be  put  under  such 
restraint  as  that  b\^  which  the  worst  of  Eastern  despots 
strive  to  break  the  spirits  of  their  subjects !  Precisely 
similar  pleas  have  been  advanced  every  time  since  1800 
that  a  similar  enterprise  has  been  undertaken  by  an 
English  government  against  the  liberties  of  Ireland. 
Coercion,  we  are  also  told  at  the  present  day  by  Mr. 
Chamberlain  and  others,  is  at  best  a  hateful  incident; 
to  exercise  it  is  to  Chamberlain,  and  such  politicians 
as  he  is,  a  painful  operation.    But  here  again  Cham 
berlain,  Forster,  and  the  rest  of  those  Englishmen 
who   always  advocate  liberty    ever3'where  but  in 
Ireland,  are  only  plagiarists.    Listen  to  the  touch- 
ing language  in  which,  as  Mr.  Leadam  reminds  us  in 
the  pamphlet  already  quoted,  Lord  Clarendon,  as  Lord- 
Lieutenant  of  Ireland,  wrote  on  the  2Gtli  January, 


176  IPwELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

1849,  asking  for  a  renewal  of  the  suspension  of  the 
Habeas  Corj)us  Act : 

While  availing  myself  of  the  extraordinary  power 
confided  to  me  bv  the  act,  it  has  been  mv  earnest  en- 
deavor  to  limit  its  operation  as  far  as  possible,  and  to 
confine  the  deprivation  of  personal  liberty  to  the  cases  of 
tliose  individuals  who  were  actuali  v  enii:af>:ed  in  treason- 
able  designs,  or  who,  by  encouraging  rlip  disaffected, 
endangered  the  peace  and  tranquillity  of  the  country. 
No  instance  occurred  of  any  arrest  taking  place  except 
on  sworn  informations;  no  person  was  retained  in  cus- 
tody longer  than  the  public  safety  appeared  to  require; 
and  although  the  number  of  individuals  whom  it  was 
my  painful  duty  to  place  in  temporar\^  confinement 
was  considerable,  having  amounted  in  all  at  different 
times  to  about  120,  yet  considering  the  extent  to  which 
treasonable  organization  has  been  parried,  not  only  in 
tlie  metropolis,  but  in  several  counties  of  Ireland,  the 
number  can  hardly  be  said  to  exceed  w^hat  might  have 
been  anticipated." 

Neither  Forster  himself  nor  Chamberlain  could  speak 
more  pathetically.  But  notwitstanding  all  the  i:)ain 
which  it  caused  Lord  Clarendon  and  Forster  to  deprive 
Irishmen  of  their  liberty  without  conviction  or  trial, 
both  of  t  hem,  like  nil  other  Lord-Lieutenants  and  Chief 
Secretaries,  went  through  nevertheless  with  that  work 
of  despotism,  and  we  have  no  doubt  that  when  their 
successors  of  to-day  come  to  use  the  greater  engine  of 
tyranny  which  they  have  fashioned  they  will  as  little 
allow  their  repugnance  to  unconstitutional  methods  of 
governiuent  io  interfere  with  what  they  will  term  the 
due  performance  of  their  duty. 

It  remains  to  ask  whether  a  system  of  rule  which  has 
required  for  its  maintenance  fifty-two  Coercion  Acts  in 


COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION  177 

fifty-two  years— tlie  existence  of  which,  in  fact,  has 
always  been  impliedly  said  by  its  supporters  to  depend 
upon  the  operation  of  measures  destructive  of  all  pub- 
lic liberties,  and  which  is  now  once  more  piacticaDy 
pronounced  by  its  admirers  to  be  unsafe  without  more 
coercion  to  prop  it  up — ^^is  one  that  ought  to  be  main- 
tained in  this  age  of  the  world?  AYould  Chamberlain 
approve  of  such  a  system  if  upheld  by  Austria  in 
Italy,  or  by  Turkey  in  Bulgaria,  or  by  Russia  in  Po- 
land? We  need  not  answer  the  question.  Were  any 
nationality  on  the  Continent  coerced  without  cessation 
for  eighty-two  years,  in  the  expectation  of  its  being 
eventually  crushed  beneath  the  yoke  of  its  oppressor, 
Chamberlain  and  such  as  he  would  protest  loudly, 
in  the  name  of  humanity,  civilization,  and  the  rights 
of  nations,  against  so  long-continued  and  so  flagrant  a 
scandal.  If  England  cannot  govern  Ireland  without 
coercion,  we  submit  that  she  is  bound  on  that  ground 
alone  to  give  up  the  work  and  let  Irishmen  govern 
themselves. 

•   PERSECUTIONS  AND  CONFISCATIONS. 

Despite  the  persecutions  and  spoliations  of  their 
predecessors,  it  was  not  until  the  reigns  of  Henry  VITI. 
and  Elizabeth  that  we  find  any  general  attempt  made, 
as  a  matter  of  state  policy,  by  the  English  executive 
to  establish  in  Ireland,  Euglisli  ways,  English  customs, 
and  English  tenures,  in  the  place  of  those  existing  from 
time  iaimemorial  throughout  this  island.  Before  tlie 
introduction  of  the  feudal  English  system  of  tenure, 
the  lands  of  Ireland  belonged  to  the  clans  of  Ireland. 
The  chief  of  the  clan,  subject  to  certain  privileges 
appurtenant  to  his  chieftaincy,  held  only  as  trustee, 
and  if  by  his  misfeasance  he  became  personally  dispos- 


178 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


sessed.  the  riglits  of  liis  people  were  in  nowise  affected. 
When,  however,  the  councillors  of  Elizabeth  deter- 
mined to  subjugate  the  entire  island,  and  to  substitute 
British  for  Brehon  law  throughout  its  wliole  extent, 
princes  and  people  alike  suffered  when  defeated. 
Victory  for  the  English  resulted  in  the  dispossession 
and  spoliation  of  the  clansmen  as  well  as  of  the  chiefs 
who  led  them  to  battle  ;  English  adventurers,  by  the 
Queen's  patent,  obtained  lordship  and  dominion  over 
the  conquered  territory;  and  clan-ownership  gave  place 
to  private  property  in  land. 

Enormous  rents  were  then  exacted  from  the  tillers  of 
the  soil  by  their  new  masters,  and  the  consequent 
risings  and  disturbances  thereupon  were  sux)pressed 
Avith  a  high  hand.  To  illustrate  his  description  of  the 
state  of  things  which  prevailed  in  Elizabeth's  reign, 
Mr.  Froude  transcribes  from  his  own  rej^ort  the  follow- 
ing letter  written  in  the  year  1576,  by  Malb}^,  the 
President  of  Connaught: 

"At  Christmas,"  he  wrote,  "I  marched  into  their 
territory  (Shan  Burke's),  and  finding  courteous  dealing 
with  them  had  like  to  have  cut  my  throat,  I  thought 
good  to  take  another  course,  and  so  with  determination 
to  consume  tlievi  id  lilt  fire  and  sioorcl,  sparing  neither 
old  nor  younr/,  I  entered  their  mountains.  I  burnt  all 
their  corn  and  houses,  and  committed  to  the  sword  all 
that  could  be  found,  where  were  slain  at  that  time 
above  sixty  of  their  best  men,  and  among  them  the  best 
leaders  thev  had.  This  was  Shan  Burke's  country. 
Then  I  burnt  Ulick  Burke's  country.  In  like  manner 
I  assaulted  a  castle,  where  the  garrison  surrendered.  I 
13ut  them  to  the  misericordia  of  my  soldiers.  They  were 
all  slain.  Thence  I  went  on,  sparing  none  which  came 
in  my  way,  which  cruelty  did  so  amaze  their  followers, 
that  they  could  not  tell  where  to  bestow  themselves. 


COERCION  AND  OPPKESSION. 


179 


Shall  Burke  made  means  to  me  to  pardon  liim,  and  for^ 
bear  killing  of  his  people.  I  would  not  hearken,  but 
went 'on  my  way.  The  gentlemen  of  Clanrickard  came 
to  me.  I  found  it  was  but  dallj'ing  to  win  time,  so  I 
left  Click  as  little  corn  and  as  few  houses  standing  as 
I  left  his  brother,  and  what  people  was  found  had  as 
little  favor  as  the  other  had.  It  was  all  done  in  raln^ 
and  frosty  and  storm^  journeys  in  such  weather  bringing 
them  the  sooner  to  submission  They  are  humble 
enough  now,  and  will  yield  to  any  terms  we  like  to 
offer  them."  . 

A  few  years  later  the  extirpation  of  the  Munster 
Geraldines  was  undertaken,  and  570,000  acres  belonc:- 
ing  to  the  Earl  of  Desmond  were  vested  in  the  Queen. 

''Proclamation  was  accordingly  made  throusrhout 
England,  inviting  '  younger  brothers  of  good  families' 
to  undertake  the  plantation  of  Desmond — each  planter 
to  obtain  a  certain  scope  of  land,  on  condition  of  set- 
tling thereupon  so  many  families — 'none  of  the  native 
Irish  to  be  admitted.'    Under  these  conditions.  Sir 
Christopher  Hatton  took  up  10,000  acres  in  Waterford; 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  12,000  acres,  partly  in  Water  ford 
and  partly  in  Cork;  Sir  AVilliam  Harbart,  or  Herbert, 
13,000  acres  in  Kerrv,  Sir  Edward  Dennv,  6,000  in  the 
same  county;  Sir  Warren  St.  Leger  and  Sir  Thomas 
Norris,  6,000  acres  each  in  Cork;  Sir  William  Courtney, 
10,000  acres  in  Limerick;  Sir  Edward  Fitton,  11,500 
acres  in  Tipperary  and  Waterford,  and  Edmund 
Spenser,  3,000  acres  in  Cork,  on  the  beautiful  Black- 
*  water     The  other  notable  '  undertakers'  were  the  Hides, 
Butchers,  Wirtlis,  Berkleys,  Trenchards,  Thorntons, 
Bourchers,  Billinsrslevs,  etc.    Some  of  these  irrants, 
especially  Raleigh's,  fell  in  the  next  reign  to  Richard 
Boyle,  the  so-called  •  Great  Earl  of  Cork' — in-ohably 
the  most  pious  hypocrite  to  be  found  in  the  long  roll 


180 


IEELA^^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


of  the*  Munster  Undertakers.'  " — GodJcin' s  Land  War 
Hollinslied  thus  describes  the  progress  of  the  English 
army  through  the  country: 

"As  they  went,  they  drove  tlie  whole  country  be- 
fore them  into  the  Yentrie,  and  by  that  means  they 
preyed  and  took  all  the  cattle  in  the  country,  to  the  num- 
ber of  8,000  kine,  besides  horses,  garrons,  sheep,  and 
goats;  Scud  all  such  people  as  they  met,  they  did  with- 
out mercy  put  to  the  sword;  by  these  means,  the  whole 
country  having  no  cattle  nor  kine  left,  the}^  were  driven 
to  such  extremities  that  for  want  of  victuals  they  were 
either  to  die  and  perish  for  famine  or  to  die  under  the 
sword." — Hollinslied^  vi.  427. 

"By  reason  of  the  continuall  persecuting  of  there- 
bells,  who  could  have  no  breath  nor  rest  to  releeve 
themselves,  but  were  alwaies  by  one  garrison  or  other 
hurt  or  pursued;  and  by  reason  the  harvest  was  taken 
from  them,  their  cat  tells  in  great  numbers  preied  from 
them,  and  the  whole  countrie  spoiled  and  preied:  the 
poore  people,  who  lived  onlie  upon  their  labors,  and 
fed  by  their  milch  cowes,  were  so  distressed  that  they 
would  follow  after  the  goods  which  were  taken  from 
them,  and  offer  themselves,  their  wives  and  children, 
rather  to  be  slaine  by  the  armie,  than  to  suffer  the 
famine  wherewith  they  were  now  pinched." — Uollhi- 
s/ied,  m.  33.    Also  Lelcuid^  hook  iv.  chap.  2. 

Again,  take  the  following  from  Sir  George  Carew: 
"The  President  having  received  certaine  information, 
that  the  Mounster  fugitives  were  harbored  in  those 
parts,  having  before  burned  all  the  houses  and  corne, 
and  taken  great  preyes  in  Owny  Onubrian  and  Kilquig, 
a  strong  and  fast  countrey,  not  farre  from  Limerick, 
diverted  his  forces  into  East  Clanwilliam  and  Musker}"- 
quirke,  where  Pierce  Lacy  had  lately  been  succoured; 
and  harassing  the  country,  killed  all  mankind  that 


COERCION  AXD  OPPRESSION. 


181 


were  found  therein,  for  a  terrour  to  those  as  should 
give  releefe  to  runagate  traitors.  Thence  wee  came 
into  Arleaghe  woods,  where  wee  did  the  like,  not 
leaving  behind  us  man  or  beast,  corne  or  cattle,  except 
such  as  had  been  conveyed  into  castles." — Pacata 
Hibernia^  189. 

*'They  wasted  and  forraged  the  country,  so  as  in  a 
small  time  it  was  not  able  to  give  the  rebells  any  re- 
liefe;  having  spoiled  and  brought  into  their  garrisons 
the  most  part  of  their  corne,  being  newly  reaped.'"  — 
Pacata  Hibernia,  584. 

The  English  Protestant  historian  Moryson  says : 
*'No  spectacle  was  more  frequent  in  the  ditches  of  the 
towns,  and  especially  in  wasted  'countries,  than  to  see 
multitudes  of  these  poor  people,  the  Irish,  dead,  with 
their  mouths  all  colored  green  by  eating  nettles,  docks, 
and  all  things  they  could  rend  above  ground." 

After  the  close  of  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  and  the 
flight  of  the  Earls  of  Tyrone  and  Tyrconnell  (O'XeiU 
and  O'Donnell),  the  work  of  extirpation  and  plantation 
was  vigorously  carried  on  by  James  I.;  and  in  the  earJy 
part  of  his  reign  Sir  John  Davis,  one  of  the  Irish  At- 
torney-Generals of  that  monarch,  was  able  to  report 
that— 

"Before  Michaelmas  he  would  be  ready  to  present 
to  his  Majest}^  a  perfect  survey  of  six  whole  counties 
which  he  now  hath  in  actual  possession  in  the  province 
of  Ulster,  of  greater  extent  of  land  than  any  prince  in 
Europe  hath  in  his  own  hands  to  dispose  of." 
r  A  sort  of  commission  was  appointed  for  parceling 
out  the  land.  It  sat  at  Liniavady,  and  as  a  sample  of 
its  proceedings  it  may  be  mentioned  that  a  sub-chief, 
O'Gahan,  who  held  under  O'Xeill.  had  his  lands  con- 
liscated  simply  because  of  the  flight  of  that  Earl. 
*^  Althongh  sundry  royal  and  vice  regal  proclamations 


I 


182  lEELAIS'Dj  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

had  assured  the  tenants  that  tliey  would  not  be  dis- 
turbed in  their  possessions  on  account  of  the  olfenses 
of  their  chiefs,  it  was  proclaimed  that  neither  O'Gahan 
nor  those  who  lived  under  him  Lad  any  estate  what- 
ever in  the  lands." — Godkin  s  Land  War. 

A  quotation  from  a  letter  written  by  the  Lord-Deput}', 
about  the  year  1607,  will  show  the  spirit  in  which  the 
inhabitants  of  Ireland  were  regarded  b}^  their  English 
rulers : 

''I  have  often  said  and  written,  it  is  famine  tliat 
must  consume  the  Irish,  as  our  swords  and  other 
endeavours  worked  not  that  speedy  effect  which  is  ex- 
pected ;  hunger  would  be  a  better,  because  a  speedier, 
weapon  to  employ  against  them  than  the  sword  .  .  . 
I  burned  all  along  the  Lough  (Neagh)  within  four  miles 
of  Dungannon,  and  killed  100  i)eople,  sparing  none,  of 
what  quality,  age,  or  sex  soever,  besides  many  hurned 
to  death.  We  killed  man,  woman,  and  child^  horse, 
beast,  and  whatsoever  we  could  find." 

The  province  of  Ulster  having  by  this  time  been  pretty 
well  cleared  of  its  native  inhabitants,  ''on  July  21st,  1009, 
a  commission  was  issued  by  the  crown  to  make  inquisi 
lion  concerning  the  forfeited  lands  in  Ulster  after  the 
flight  of  the  Earls  of  Tyrone  and  TyrconneJl.  The  com- 
missioners included  the  Lord-Deputy  Chichester,  the 
Archbishops  of  Armagh  and  Dublin,  Sir  John  Davis, 
Attorney-General;  Sir  AVilliam  Parsons,  Surveyor- 
General,  and  several  other  public  functionaries.  This 
work  done,  King  James  L,  acting  on  the  advice  of,  his 
Prime  Minister,  the  Earl  of  Salisbury,  took  measures 
for  the  plantation.  .  .  .  The  city  of  London  was  thought 
to  be  the  best  quarter  to  look  to  lor  funds  to  carry  on 
the  plantation.  Accordingly,  Lord  Salisbury  had  a 
conference  with  the  Lord-Mayor,  Humphrey  Weld,  Sir 
John  Jolles,  and  Sir  W.  Cockaine,  who  were  well  ac- 


« 


COERCION  AND  OPPRESSIOX.  183 

quainted  with  Irish  affairs.    The  result  was  the  publi- 
cation of  'Motives  and  Reasons  to  Induce  the  Citv  of 
London  to  Undertake  the  Plantation  in  the  North  of 
Ireland.'    The  corporation  were  willing  to  undertake  the 
work  of  plantation  if  the  account  given  of  its  advan- 
tages should  prove  to  be  correct.  ...  So  they  sent 
over  'four  wise,  grave,  and  discreet  citizens,  to  view 
the  situation  proposed  for  the  new  colonj^'  .  .  .  On 
their  return  they  presented  a  report  to  the  Court  of 
Common  Council,  which  was  openly  read.    The  report 
was  favorable.  .  .  .  With  respect  to  the  disposal  of 
such  of  the  natives  as  remained,  it  was  arranged  that 
some  were  to  be  planted  on  two  of  the  small  allotments 
and  upon  the  glebes ;  others  upon  the  land  of  Sir  Art 
O'Neiirs  sons  and  Sir  Henry  Oge  O'Neill's  sons,  'and 
of  such  other  Irish  as  shall  be  thouo;ht  fit  to  have  anv 
freeholds ;  some  others  upon  the  portions  of  such  ser 
vitors  as  are  not  able  to  inhabit  these  lands  with  Eng- 
lish or  Scotch  tenants,  especially  of  such  as  hest  Jcnow 
how  to  rule  and  order  the  Irish.    But  the  swordsmen 
(that  is,  the  armed  retainers  or  soldiers  of  the  chiefs) 
are  to  be  transplanted  into  such  other  parts  of  tlie 
kingdom  as,  by  reasons  of  the  wastes  therein,  are  fittest 
to  receive  them — namely,  into  Connauglit  and  some 
parts  of  Munster,  where  they  are  to  be  dispersed,  and 
not  planted  together  in  one  place;  and  such  swords 
men  who  have  not  followers  or  cattle  of  their  own,  to 
be  disposed  of  in  his  Majesty's  service.'" — GodJcm  s 
Land  War. 

The  character  of  the  plantation  made  under  Elizabeth 
differed  materially  from  that  of  James's  reign.  Gigantic 
grants  were  made  in  Munster  by  Elizabeth  to  her 
favorites,  whereas  we  find  that  the  allotments  made  hy 
James  to  each  individual  were  of  comparatively  mode 
rate  extent. 


184 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Thus  we  find  the  Prime  Minister,  writing  to  Chichester, 
about  the  year  1607,  complaining — 

^'That  was  an  oversight  in  the  plantation  of  Munster, 
where  12,000  acres  were  commonly  allotted  to  bank- 
rupts and  country  gentlemen,  that  never  knew  the  dis- 
position of  the  Irish;  so  as  God  forbid  that  those  who 
have  spent  their  blood  in  the  service  should  not  of  all 
others  be  preferred." 

The  character  of  the  grants  made  by  Elizabeth  may 
be  judged  from  the  size  of  those  mentioned,  and  more- 
over we  read  that  24,000  acres  were  given  to  Jane 
Beecher  and  Hugh  Worth,  11,000  to  Arthur  Hyde, 
11,000  to  Sir  G.  Lytton  in  Tipperary,  11,000  to  Sir  G. 
Boucher,  and  so  on. 

All  through  the  reign  of  James  the  work  of  conquest 
and  confiscation  went  steadily  on.  Kebellion  was 
promoted,  and  then,  when  the  cjiiefs  were  routed,  we 
find  the  record  running  somewhat  in  this  fashion  : 

"O'Dougherty's  country  being  confiscated,  the  Lord- 
De2)uty,  Chichester,  was  rewarded  with  the  greatest 
portion  of  his  lands.    But  what  was  to  be  done  with 
the  people?    In  the  first  instance  tlie}^  were  driven 
from  the  rich  lowkmds  along  to  the  borders  of  Lough 
Foyle  and  Lough  Swilly,  and  comjielled  to  take  refuge 
in  the  mountain  fastnesses  which  stretched  to  a  vast 
extent  from  Moville  westward  along  the  Atlantic  coast. 
But  could  those  'idle  kerne  and  swordsmen,'  thus 
punished  with  loss  of  la/ids  and  home  for  the  crimes  of 
their  cliief,  be  safelv  trusted  to  remain  anywhere  in 
'the  neigliborhood  of  the  new  English  settlers?  Sir 
John  Davis  and  Sir  Toby  Caul  field  thought  of  a  plan 
by  wliich  they  could  get  rid  of  the  danger.  Gustavus 
Adolphus  was  then  fighting  the  battles  of  Protestantism 
against  the  house  of  Austria.  ...  To  what  better 
use,  then,  could  the  'loose  Irish  kerne  and  swordsmen' 


COERCION  AND  OPPKESSION.  185 

of  Donegal  be  turned  than  to  send  tliem  to  fight  in  the 
army  of  the  King  of  Sweden  ?  Accordingly  6,000  of 
the  able-bodied  jDeasantry  of  Inishovven  were  shipped 
off  for  this  service." — Godlcin'  8  Land  War. 

A  fighting  adventurer  named  St.  Lawrence,  himself 
a  Catholic,  and  the  ancestor  of  the  present  Earl  of 
Howth,  obtained  large  grants  of  confiscated  lands  as  a 
consideration  for  his  giving  perjured  testimony  as  to 
the  existence  of  a  conspiracy  on  the  part  of  O'Neill. 
Sir  Fulke  Conway,  a  Welsh  ofl^icer,  obtained  similar 
grants,  and  at  his  death,  in  1626,  his  brother,  who  was 
a  favorite  of  Charles  I.,  succeeded  to  the  estate,  to 
which  his  royal  p^ltron  added  the  lands  of  Derryvolgie, 
thus  making  him  lord  of  nearly  70,000  statute  acres  of 
the  broad  lands  of  Down  and  Antrim. 

When  crown  grants  of  land  were  made  to  the  planters 
or  adventurers,  it  was  expressly  stipulated  that  their, 
tenants  were  to  be  English  or  Scotch,  and  Protestants. 
A  Presbyterian  minister,  whose  father  was  one  of  the 
planters,  thus  describes  the  men  who  came:  "From 
Scotland  came  many,  and  from  England  not  a  few ; 
yet  all  of  them  generally  the  scum  of  both  nations,  who 
from  debt,  or  mocking  and  fleeing  from  justice,  or 
seeking  shelter,  came  hither  hoping  to  be  without  fear 
of  man's  justice,  in  a  land  where  there  was  nothing,  or 
but  little  as  yet,  of  the  fear  of  God.  .  .  .  Most  of 
the  people  were  all  void  of  godliness.  .  .  .  On  all 
hands  atheism  increased,  and  disregard  of  God:  iniquity 
abounds  with  contention,  fighting,  murder,  and  adul- 
tery."— 3IS.  History,  bp  Hev.  A.  Stuart,  quoted  in 
Me i d' s  History  of  the  Presbyterian  Cliurcli,  vol.  i.  p.  96. 

As  for  the  miserable  remnant  of  the  native  popula- 
tion,— 

*'The  tyranny  of  such  men  as  Sir  Frederick  Hamil- 
ton, of  Manor-Hamilton,  and  Sir  Charles  Coote,  drove 


186 


IKELA^D,  PAST  AIS^D  PRESENT. 


the  unfortunate  peasantry  to  madness.  The  cruelties 
inliicted  on  the  Christians  of  Sj^ain  by  Aben  Hunieya 
and  his  Morisco  captains  pal^  before  the  atrocities  per- 
petrated by  Hamilton  on  the  inhabitants  of  Lei  trim  and 
Longford.  His  bawn  or  castle  was  the  rendezvous  of 
a  ferocious  banditti,  who  spread  death  and  desolation 
around  them.  Bv"  dav  and  ni^ht  he  sent  from  within 
its  walls  a  savage  soldiery,  who  robbed  and  murdered 
with  impunity.  When  they  returned  to  their  leader, 
the  most  acceptable  gifts  they  could  offer  wepe  the 
Leads  of  the  wretched  people,  which  they  brutally 
severed  from  the  bodies:  women  and  tender  girls  were 
not  exempt  from  the  horrors  which  this  fanatic  inliicted 
in  the  holy  name  of  God.  UjDon  a  hill  near  his  castle 
he  erected  a  gallows,  from  which  every  day  a  fresh 
victim  was  suspended." — Meeliari s  Confederation  of 
Kilkenny^  p.  53. 

In  the  same  work,  p.  18,  Sir  Charles  Coote  is  thus 
spoken  of:  "  Coote' s  thirst  for  blood  was  insatiable.  He 
threatened  not  to  leave  a  Catholic  in  Ireland."  In 
Wicklow  he  put  many  innocent  persons  to  the  sword 
without  distinction  of  age  or  sex.  On  one  occasion, 
when  he  met  a  soldier  carrying  an  infant  on  the  point 
of  his  pike,  he  was  charged  with  saying  that  "  he  liked 
such  frolics."  Lord  Castlehaven  gives  a  fearful  account 
of  the  conduct  of  the  troops  under  Coote' s  command, 
**who  killed  men,  women,  and  children,  promiscu- 
ously." — Miss  CnsacJcs  History  of  Ireland^  p  482. 
Leland  speaks  of  "his  ruthless  and  indiscriminate  car- 
nage." Warner  says  *'  he  was  a  stranger  to  mercy." — 
Ibid^p  482. 

By  the  end  of  the  reign  of  James  L,  Ulster  began  to 
be  pretty  thickly  settled  by  Scotch  colonists,  and  the 
foundations  of  important  towns,  like  Derry,  Lurgan, 
and  Belfast,  with  special  privileges,  had  been  laid.  A 


COERCION"  AND  OPPKESSION. 


187 


remnant  of  native  Irisli,  groaning  under  the  exactions  of 
the  invaders,  of  course  only  waited  an  opportunity  to 
throw  off  the  foreign  yoke;  and  the  exactions  of  the 
"undertakers"  at  last  produced  the  rising  of  1041.^ 
On  the  outbreak  of  this  rebellion,  before  it  had  extended 
beyond  the  borders  of  Ulster,  the  English  Parliament 
passed  the  Act  17th  Charles  I.,  whereby  2,500,000  acres 
of  land  were  declared  forfeited  in  Ireland,  and  which 
enacted  that  these  acres  should  be  offered  for  sale  at 
fixed  rates  in  London  and  the  surrounding  districts. 
One  of  the  notable  clauses  in  the  act  provides  that  the 
lands  are  to  be  taken  from  the  four  provinces  in  eqiral 
proportions,  that  is,  one-fourth  from  each,  though  at 
the  tinte  when  it  received  the  royal  assent  there  was 
no  rebel  outside  Ulster,  and  there  not  one  convicted. 
Again,  there  cannot  be  a  doubt  but  that  Parsons  and 
Borlase,  who  were  Lords- Justices  at  the  opening  of  the 
rebellion,  goaded  the  Catholics  of  the  Pale  into  insur- 
rection, and  refused  all  terms  of  accommodation,  in 
view  of  the  splendid  forfeitures  which  awaited  sup- 
pression by  the  sword. 

Throughout  the  reign  of  Ciiarles  I.  the  Irish  proprie- 
tors were  harassed  b}^  Strafford,  who  imagined  the 
device  of  a  Defective  Titles  Commission,  and  plotted 
the  escheatal  of  the  entire  province  of  Connaught  to  the 
crown  by  legal  chicane.  The  Irish  House  of  Commons 
was  induced  to  vote  large  supplies  to  Charles,  on  a 
promise  that  these  schemes  should  not  be  persisted  in, 
but  the  promise  was  shamefully  broken,  and  Strafford 
had  juries  which  would  not  "find"  estates  for  the  King, 
amerced  in  thousands  of  pounds,  tortured,  and  im- 
prisoned. See  O'Connell's  "Memoir  of  Ireland," 
chapter  third. 

When  the  Commonwealth  was  proclaimed  in  Eng- 
land, the  Irish,  fondly  imagining  that,  by  espousing 


188 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


the  cause  of  King  Charles  I.  againsfc  the  Parliament, 
they  were  striking  for  their  property  and  religion,  a 
rally  was  everywhere  made  to  the  royalist  side  over  all 
the  island,  and  for  some  years  the  royal,  or  Catholic, 
or  popular  cause,  was  in  the  ascendant.  But  Crom- 
well, fresh  from  his  victories  in  England,  appears  on  the 
scene,  and  once  more  the  work  of  savage  subjugation 
and  wholesale  confiscation  commences.  His  lieu  tenants 
were  not  more  merciful  than  himself. 

"Sir  William  Cole,  ancestor  of  the  Earl  of  Ennis- 
killen,  joroudly  boasted  of  his  achievement  in  having 
7,000  of  the  rebels  famished  to  death  within  a  circuit  of 
a  few  miles  of  his  garrison :  the  descendants  of  the 
remnant  of  the  natives  on  his  estate  do  not  forget  how 
the  family  obtained  its  wealth  and  honors.  Lord  Cork 
prepared  1,100  indictments  against  men  of  i)roperty  in 
his  province,  which  he  sent  to  the  Speaker  of  the  Long 
Parliament,  with  an  urgent  request  that  they  might  be 
returned  to  him,  with  authority  to  proceed  against  the 
parties  named  as  outlaws.  In  Leinster,  4,000  similar 
indictments  were  found  in  the  course  of  two  days  by 
the  free  use  of  the  rack  with  witnesses.  Sir  John  Reid, 
an  officer  of  the  King's  bed-chamber,  and  Mr.  Barn- 
wall  of  Kilbrue,  a  gentleman  of  threescore-and-six, 
were  among  those  who  underwent  the  torture.''  — 
GodJciiv  s  Land  War. 

Similar  proceedings,  which  it  is  needless  to  describe, 
went  on  over  the  entire  country. 

"The  Long  Parliament  having  confiscated  2,500,000 
acres,  offered  it  as  security  to  'adventurers'  who  would 
advance  money  to  meet  the  cost  of  the  war.  In  Feb- 
ruary, 1642,  the  House  of  Commons  received  a  petition 
'of  divers  well  affected'  to  it,  offering  to  raise  and 
maintain  forces  at  their  own  charge  'agtiinst  the  rebels 
of  Ireland,  and  afterwards  to  receive  their  recompense 


COERCION  AND  OPPKESSION.  189 

• 

oufc  of  rebels'  estates.'  Under  the  act  'for  the  speedy 
reducing  of  the  rebels'  the  adventurers  were  to  carry 
over  a  brigade  of  5,000  fooc  and  500  horse,  and  to  have 
the  right  of  appointing  their  own  officers.  And  they 
were  to  have  estates  given  to  them  at  the  following 
rates:  1,000  acres  for  £200  in  Ulster,  for  £300  in 
Connaught,  for  £450  in  Munster,  and  £600  in  Leinster. 
The  rates  per  acre  were  4s.,  6s.,  8s.,  and  12s.  in  those 
provinces  respectivel}^. 

"At  the  end  of  1653,  the  Parliament  made  a  division 
of  the  spoil  among  the  conquerors  and  the  adventurers, 
and  on  September  23th  an  act  was  passed  for  the  new 
planting  of  Ireland  by  English.    The  government  re- 
served for  itself  the  towns,  the  Church  lands,  and  the 
tithes,  the  Established  Church,  hierarchy  and  all,  having 
been  utterly  abolished.    The  four  counties  of  Dublin, 
Kildare,  Carlo w,  and  Cork  were  also  reserved.  The 
amount  due  to  the  adventurers  w\as  £360,000.  This 
they  divided  into  three  lots,  of  which  £110,000  was  to 
be  satisfied  in  Munster,  £205,000  in   Leinster,  and 
£45,000  iii  Ulster,  and  the  moiety  of  ten  counties  w^as 
charged  with  their  payment — Waterford,  Limerick, 
and  Tipperary  in  Munster;  Meath,  WestMeath,  King's 
and  Queen's  Counties  in  Leinster;  and  Antrim,  Down, 
and  Armagh  in  Ulster.    But,  as  all  Avas  required  by  the 
Adventurers'  Act  to  be  done  by  lot,  a  lottery  was  ap- 
pointed to  be  held  in  Grocers'  Hall,  London,  for  July 
20th,  1653,  to  begin  at  8  o'  clock  in  the  morning,  when 
lots  should  be  first  drawn  in  which  province  eacli 
adventurer   was    to  be  satisfied,  not  exceeding  the 
specified  amounts  in  any  province;   lots  were  to  be 
drawn,  secondly,  to  ascertain  in  which  of  the  ten 
counties  each  adventurer  was  to  receive  his  land — the 
lots  not  to  exceed  in  West  Meath  £70,000,  in  Tipperary 
£60,000,  in  Meath  £55,000,  in  King's  and  Queen's 


190  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

Counties  £40,000  eacli,  in  Limerick  £30,000,  in  Water- 
ford  £20,000,  in  Antrim,  Down,  and  Armagh  £15,000 
each."  Later  on  "the  English  Parliament  resolved  to 
clear  out  the  population  of  all  the  principal  cities  and 
seaport' towns,  though  nearly  all  founded  and  inhabited 
by  Danes  or  English,  and  men  of  English  descent.  In 
order  to  raise  funds  for  the  war,  the  following  towns 
were  offered  to  English  merchants  for  sale  at  the  piices 
annexed:  Limerick,  with  12,001)  acres  contiguous,  for 
£30,000,  and  a  rent  of  £625,  payable  to  the  state; 
Waterford,  with  1,500  acres  contiguous,  at  the  same 
rate;  Galway,  with  10,000  acres,  for  £7,500,  and  a  rent 
of  £520;  Wexford,  with  6,000  acres,  for  £5,000,  and  a 
rent  of  £156  4s. 

'•On  July  23d,  1655,  the  inhabitants  of  Galway  were 
commanded  to  quit  the  town  forever  by  the  1st  Nov- 
ember following,  the  owners  of  houses  getting  com- 
pensation at  eight  years'  purchase. 

"On  October  30th,  this  order  wasexecuted.  All  the 
inhabitants,  except  the  sick  and  bed-rid,  were  at  once 
banished,  to  provide  accommodation  for  English  Pro- 
testants, whose  integrity  to  the  state  should  entitle 
them  to  be  trusted  in  a  place  of  such  importance;  and 
Sir  Charles  Coote,  on  November  7tb,  received  the  thanks 
of  the  government  for  clearing  the  town,  with  a  request 
that  he  would  remove  the  sick  and  bed-rid  as  soon  as 
the  season  might  permit,  and  take  care  that  the  houses 
while  empty  were  not  spoiled  by  the  soldiery.  The 
town  was  thus  made  ready  for  the  English." — Godkin' s 
Land  Vi'ar. 

All  the  Irish  population,  including  many  of  the 
Anglo-Irish  planted  by  Elizabeth,  were  driven  across 
the  Shannon  into  Connaught.  "Hell  or  Connaugbt" 
was  their  alternative,  and  so  sweeping  w^ere  the  clear- 
ances effected,  that  in  Tipperary  and  other  places  the 


COERCIOX  AND  OPPHESSIOX 


191 


soldiery  who  came  to  settle  upon  tlie  lands  allotted  to 
them,  when  they  could  not  agree  as  to  the  boundaries  of 
their  estates,  were  compelled  to  obtain  a  special  per- 
mission from  the  authorities  to  bring  back  for  a  short 
time  from  Connaught  some  of  the  dispossessed  owners  to 
point  out  their  lands.  That  this  to-day  might  be  shown 
to  be  something  more  than  a  mere  "historic''  grievance, 
is  i)erhaps  evident  from  the  manner  in  which  the  peo- 
ple are  found  crowded  on  the  wastes  and  mountains  of 
the  West. 

With  the  exception  of  some  minor  incidents  of  a 
similar  character,  which  followed  the  Irish  victories  of 
William,  the  Cromwellian  settlement  just  described  was 
the  last  considerable  unsettlement  in  the  ownership  of 
landed  property  in  Ireland.  It  was  the  successful  con- 
summation of  work  begun  by  Elizabeth — the  wresting 
of  the  soil  of  Ireland  from  the  Irish  people. 

Cromwell's  administration  effected  a  revolution  un- 
paralleled in  history  Its  proceedings  have  been  well 
summarized  by  D'Arcy  McGee :  *'Tlit^  Long  Par- 
liament, still  dragging  out  its  days  under  the  shadow 
of  Cromwell's  great  name,  declared  in  its  session  of 
1652  the  rebellion  in  Ireland  '  subdued  and  ended,'  and 
proceeded  to  legislate  for  that  kingdom  as  a  conquered 
countr}'.  On  August  IStli  they  passed  their  Act  of  Set- 
tlement, the  authorship  of  which  was  attributed  to 
Lord  Orrery,  in  this  respect  the  worthy  son  of  the  first 
Earl  of  Cork.  Under  this  act  there  were  four  chief 
descriptions  of  persons  whose  status  was  thus  settled: 
1.  All  ecclesiastics  and  royalist  proprietors  were  ex- 
empted from  pardon  of  life  or  estate.  2.  All  royalist 
commissioned  officers  were  condemned  to  banishment, 
and  the  forfeit  of  two-thirds  of  their  property,  one- 
third  being  retained  for  the  support  of  their  wives  and 
children.    3.  Those  who  had  not  been  in  arms,  but 


103 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


could  be  sliown,  by  a  Parliamentary  commission,  to 
have  manifested  'a  constant  good  affection'  to  the  war, 
were  to  forfeit  one-third  of  their  estates,  and  receive 
'  an  equivalent'  for  the  remaining  two-thirds  Avest  of  ^ 
the  Shannon.  4.  All  husbandmen  and  others  of-  tlie 
inferior  sort,  '  not  possessed  of  lands  or  goods  exceed- 
ing the  value  of  £10,'  were  to  have  a  free  pardon,  on 
condition  also  of  transporting  themselves  across  the 
Shannon. 

"  This  last  condition  of  the  Cromwellian  settlement 
distinguished  it,  in  our  annals,  from  every  other  pro- 
scription of  the  native  population  formerly  attempted. 
The  great  river  of  Ireland,  rising  in  the  mountains  of 
Leitrim,  nearly  sevei's  the  five  western  counties  fioni 
the  rest  of  the  kingdom.  The  province  thus  set  apart, 
though  one  of  the  largest  in  superficial  extent,  had 
also  the  largest  proportion  of  waste  and  w^ater,  moun- 
tain and  moorland.  The  new  inhabitants  were  there 
to  congregate  from  all  the  other  provinces  before  the 
first  day  of  May,  1654,  under  penalty  of  outlawry  and 
all  its  consequences;  and  when  there,  they  were  not  to 
appear  within  two  miles  of  tlie  Shannon,  or  four  miles 
of  the  sea.  A  rigorous  passport  system,  to  evade  which 
was  death  without  form  of  trial,  completed  this  set- 
tlement, the  design  of  which  was  to  shut  uji  the  re- 
maining Catholic  inhabitants  from  all  intercourse  with 
mankind,  and  all  communion  with  the  other  inhabit- 
ants of  their  own  country. 

A  new  survey  of  the  whole  kingdom  was  also  or- 
dered, under  the  direction  of  Sir  William  Petty,  the 
fortunate  economist  who  founded  the  house  of  Lans- 
downe.  By  him  the  surface  of  the  kingdom  was  esti- 
mated at  10,500,000  plantation  acres,  3,000,000  of  which 
were  deducted  for  water  and  waste.  Of  the  remainder, 
above  5,000,000  were  in  Catholic  hands  inl641;  300,000 


COERCION  AND  OPPRESSION. 


193 


ivere  Church  and  college  lands;  and  2.000,000  were  in 
possession  of  the  Protestant  settlers  of  the  reigns  of 
James  and  Elizabeth.  Under  the  Protectorate,  5,000,- 
000  acres  were  confiscated.  This  enormous  spoil,  two- 
thirds  of  the  whole  island,  went  to  the  soldiers  nnd 
adventurers  who  had  served  against  the  Irish,  or  liad 
contributed  to  the  military  chest  since  1641 — except 
700,000  acres  given  in  'excijange'  to  the  banished  in 
Clare  and  Connaught,  and  1,200,000  confirmed  to  'in- 
nocent Papists.' 

'•The  government  of  Ireland  was  vested  in  th.e 
Deput\%  the  Commander-in-chief,  and  four  commis- 
sioners, Ludlow,  Corbett,  Jones,  and  Weaver.  There 
was,  moreover,  a  high  court  of  justice',  which  peram- 
bulated the  kingdom,   and   exercised   an  absolute 
authority  over  life  and  property,  greater  than  even 
Strafford's  Court  of  Star  Chamber  had  pretended  to. 
Over  this  court  j)resided  Lord  Lowther,  assisted  by 
Mr.  Justice  Bonnellan,  by  Cooke,  solicitor  to  the  Par- 
liament on  the  trial  o£  King  Cliarles,  and  the  regicide 
Eevnolds.    Bv  this  court.  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill,  Vis- 
count  Mayo,  and  Colonels  0' Toole  and  Bagnall  were 
condemned  and  executed;  children  of  both  sexes  were  • 
captured  by  thousands,  and  sold  as  slaves  to  the  to- 
bacco-planters of  Virginia  and  the  West  Indies.  Sir 
William  Petty  states  that  6,000  boys  and  girls  were 
sent  to  those  islands.    The  number,  of  all  ages,,  thus- 
transported  was  estimated  at  100,000  souls.    As  to  the- 
'  swordsmen'  who  had  been  trained  to  fighting,  Petty, 
in  his  '  Political  Anatomy,'  records  that  '  the  chiefest 
and  most  eminentest  of  the  nobilitv  and  manv  of  the 
geutry  had  taken  conditions  from  the  King  of  Spain^ 
and  had  transported  40,000  of  the  most  active-spirited 
men,  most  acquainted  with  the  dangers  and  discipline 
of  war.'    The  chief,  commissioners  in  Dublin  had  diS' 


194 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


patched  assistant  commissioners  to  the  provinces.  The 
distribution  which  they  made  of  the  soil  was  nearly  as 
complete  as  that  of  Canaan  among  the  Israelites;  and 
this  was  the  model  which  the  Puritans  had  always  be- 
fore their  minds.    Where  a  miserable  residue  of  the 
population  was  required  to  till  the  land  for  its  new 
owners,  they  were  tolerated  as  the  Gibeonites  had  been 
by  Joshua.    Irish  gentlemen  who  had  obtained  i)ar- 
dons  were  obliged  to  wear  a  distinctive  mark  on  their 
dress  on  pain  of  death.    Persons  of  inferior  rank  were 
distinguished  by  a  black  spot  on  the  riglit  cheek. 
Wanting  this,  their  punishment  was  the  branding-iron 
or  the  gallows. 

'*Ko  vestige  of  the  Catholic  religion  was  allowed 
to  exist.  Catholic  lawyers  and  schoolmasters  were 
silenced.  All  ecclesiastics  were  slain  like  the  priests 
of  Baal.  Three  bishops  and  300  of  the  inferior  clergy 
thus  perished.  The  bed-i  idden  Bishop  of  Kilmore  was 
the  only  native  clergyman  permitted  to  survive.  If,  in 
mountain  recesses  or  caves,  a  few  peasants  were  de- 
tected at  mass,  they  were  smoked  out  and  shot." 

Thus  England  got  rid  of  a  I'acc  concerning  whicli 
Prendergast-  found  this  contemporary  testimony  in  a 
MS.  in  Trinity  College  library,  Dublin,  dated  1615. 

There  lives  not  a  people  more  hardy,  active,  and  pain- 
ful ;  .  .  .  neither  is  there  anv  will  endure  the  miseries 
of  warre,  as  famine,  watching,  heat,  cold,  wet,  travel, 
and  the  like,  so  naturally  and  with  such  facility  and 
courage  that  they  do.  The  Pi'ince  of  Orange's  Excel-, 
lency  uses  often  publiquely  to  deliver  that  the  Irish 
are  souldiers  the  ilrst  dav  of  their  birth.  The  famous 
Henry  lY.,  late  King  of  France,  said  there  would  prove 
no  nation  so  resolute  martial  men  as  they,  would  they 
be  ruly  and  not  too  headstrong.  And  Sir  Jolin  Norris 
was  wont  .to  ascribe  this  particular  to.  that  nation  above 


;evictions  in  Ireland. 


195 


others,  that  he  never  beheld  so  few  of  nny  country  as 
of  Irish  that  were  idiots  and  cowni  ti.^.  \\  liich  is  very 
notable." 

EVICTIONS  IN  IRELAND. 

On  May  14th,  1881,  a  Parliamentary  paper  was  issued, 
giving  the  number  of  evictions  in  Ireland  which  have 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  the  constabulary  in  each  of 
the  years  from  i849  to  1880  inclusive.  In  1849  the 
number  of  families  evicted  was  16.686,  and  of  persons 
90.410;  and  of  these  there  were  readmitted  n.s  care-takers 
3,302,  and  persons  18,375.  Next  year  the  numbers 
were  still  higher — 19,949  families  evicted,  consisting  of 
104,103  persons,  the  read  missions  being  5,404  families, 
and  30,292  piireon«.  From  that  time  there  was  a  de- 
crease up  to  1860,  in  which  year  the  figures  are — fami- 
lies evicted,  636;  persons,  2,985;  readmissions — families, 
65,  and  persons,  274.  From  1861  to  1864  there  was  an 
increase  in  the  latter  year,  the  uumbei'S  being — families 
"evicted,  1,824,  and  persons,  9,201 ;  readmissions — fami- 
lies, 276,  and  persons,  1,312.  Xext  year  they  decreased 
about  one-half,  and  there  is  likewise  a  diminution  in 
the  two  subsequent  years.  In  1838  there  was  again  a 
slight  increase.  1869  shows  the  smallest  number  of 
evictions  durins:  any  year  embraced  in  the  return,  the 
ligures  being — families,  374,  and  persons,  1,741  ;  read- 
missions — families,  63,  and  persons,  313.  In  1870  there 
was  a  considerable  augmentation,  and  in  the  following' 
year  a  decrease  to  the  number  of  482  families  evicted, 
with  noticeably  more  readmissions.  Up  to  1874  there 
was  a  gradual  rise  m  which  year  the  numbers  were — 
families  evicted,  726^  and  persons,  3,571;  readmissions — 
families,  200,  and  persons,  997  Next  year's  evictions 
numbered  067,  but  with  a  remarkably  small  i^roportion 


196 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


of  readmissions,  as  compared  with  the  previous  year, 
the  readmissions  being  but  71  lamilies,  consisting  of 
387  persons. 

From  this  year  the  number  of  readmissions  continues 
to  the  end  of  the  return.  In  1876  the  evictions  were 
553  in  number,  and  the  readmissions,  85.  In  1877, 
evictions,  463;  readmissions,  57.  1878,  evictions,  980  ; 
readmissions,  146.  1879,  evictions,  1,238;  readmissions, 
140.  1880,  evictions,  2,110;  persons,  10,457;  readmis- 
sions, 217;  persons,  1,021.  The  number  of  evictions 
last  year,  it  may  be  noted,  was  very  nearly  tlie  same 
as  in  1854,  being  2.156  in  the  former  and  2,110,  or  46 
fewer,  in  the  latter  period.  But  in  1880  there  were  but 
217  readmissions,  consisting  of  1,021,  against  331  read- 
missions,  consisting  of  1,805  persons.  There  is,  how 
ever,  some  confusion  as  to  some  years  giving  the  number 
of  readmissions  of  tenants  only,  and  others  including 
the  number  of  care-takers  as  well.  Last  year  there  were 
more  evictions  in  Ulster  than  in  any  year  since  lc-52, 
the  numbeis  having  been  497  in  1881.  and  1,140 
in  1852,  which  were  exceeded  in  1849,  when  the  num-* 
bers  were  1,893  and  1,961  respective!}'.  In  Leinster 
there  were  slightly  fewer  evictions  than  in  Ulster  last 
year,  but  more  every  other  year,  in  some  cases  being 
doubled.  In  Connauglit  there  were  fewer  evictions 
last  year  than  in  any  of  the  other  three  provinces,  the 
number  having  been  387,  owing  to  the  agitation.  The 
proportion  of  readmissions,  however,  is  smaller  In 
the  other  years  of  the  return  it  varies  little  from 
Leinster,  being  but  slightly  in  excess.  In  Munster  the 
return  shows  a  fearful  state  of  things:  in  1881  evic- 
tions  in  the  province  were  742,  consisting  of  4,075, 
and  the  readmissions  only  78  families,  of  418  persons. 
During  the  last  three  years  1,393  families  have  been 
eiicted,  and  7,590  persons  made  homeless,  while  only 


THE  UIGIIT  OF  SELF  GOVEIIXMEXT. 


197 


162  families,  consisting  of  798  persons,  were  readmitted. 
In  every  oilier  year  the  number  of  evictions  is  greater 
than  that  of  the  other  provinces,  while  the  proportion 
of  readmissions  is  smaller.  For  the  present  year  of 
1882  the  evictions,  so  far  as  heard  from,  threaten  to 
nearly  double  those  of  the  past  year. 

THE  KIGHT  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

The  inconsistency  and  hypocrisy  of  England  has 
been  manifested  throu^'hout  her  whole  historv.  While 

o  f 

aiding  the  revolutionists  in  Naples,  Sardinia,  and  Italy 
to  take  up  arms  against  their  legitimate  governments 
and  the  Pope,  she  was  at  the  same  time  crushing  out 
public  opinion  in  Ireland  by  coercion  laws,  starvation, 
and  forced  emigration. 

So  eager  w^ere  the  London  journals  to  press  the 
Romans,  the  Venetians,  and  Sicilians  into  revolt  that 
they  were  blind  to  the  work  which  they  were-  at  the 
verv  time  doing  in  Ireland.  In  1859  and  1860,  while 
Feuianism  Was  taking  root  in  Ireland,  the  English 
people  and  press  were  liberal  in  substantial  and  cheer- 
ng  words  to. the  revolutionists  in  Ital}^ 

The  London  Times  said  :  That  government  should 
be  for  the  good  of  the  governed,  and  that  whenever 
rulers  wilfully  and  persistently  postpone  the  good  of 
their  subjects,  either  to  the  interests  of  foreign  states, 
or  to*absti'act  theories  of  religion  or  politics,  the  people 
have  a  right  to  throw  off  the  yoke,  are  principles  which 
have  been  too  often  admitted  and  acted  upon  to  be  any 
longer  questioned." 

But  who  should  judge  all  this?  Here  is  the  reply 
supplied  by  the  great  English  journal:  "The  destiny 
of  a  nation  ouglit  to  be  determined,  not  by  the  opin- 
ions of  other  nations,  but  by  the  opinion  of  the  nation 


198 


IllELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


itself.  To  decide  whether  they  are  well  governed  or 
not,  or  rather,  whether  the  degree  of  extortion,  corrup- 
tion, and  cruelty  to  which  they  are  subject  is  sufficient 
to  justify  armed  resistance,  is  for  those  who  live  under 
that  government, — not  for  those  who,  being  exempt 
from  its  oppression,  feel  a  sentimental  or  theological 
interest  in  its  continuance." 

TJte  Dallfj  Netcs  was  equally  explicit :  Europe  has 
over  and  over  again  affirmed  that  one  principle  on  which 
the  Italian  question  depends,  and  to  which  the  inhabit- 
ants of  Central  Italy  jippeal — the  right  of  a  people  to 
choose  its  own  rulers." 

On  the  same  point  TJie  Times  says:  "England  has 
not  scrupled  to  avow  her  opinion  that  the  people  of  the 
Roman  States,  like  every  other  people,  have  a  right  to 
choose  the  form  of  their  own  government,  and  the  per- 
sons in  whose  hands  that  government  shall  be  placed." 

The  London  Sun  declaied :  "As  free  Englislinien, 
we  assert  the  right  of  the  Romans,  and  of  all  nations, 
to  have  governors  of  their  own  choice." 

The  English  Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs-,  Lord  John 
Russell,  S2)eaking  at  Aberdeen,  enforced  the  same  doc- 
trine. A  passage  in  the  Queen's  speech  affirmed  it. 
Lord  Elienborough  hoped  the  Pope's  subjects  would 
appeal  to  arms  as  the  on  1 3^  way  in  which  they  could 
assert  their  right:  "I  will  liope  that,  stimulated  by 
the  insults  to  Itah^vhich  are  conveyed  in  the  demands 
France  is  about  to  make  in  the  Congress,  they  will  rise 
to  vindicate  their  right  tochoose  tlieirown  government, 
and  clutch  the  arms  b\Mvhich  alone  it  can  be  secured." 

Out  of  these  declarations  arose  in  Ireland  a  move- 
ment which  the  popular  journals  designated  "Taking 
England  at  her  word."  TIte  Dull  in  JS^aiion  proposed 
that  a  national  petition  in  the  following  form  should 
be  presented  to  the  Queen: 

f 


THE  RIGHT  OF  SELF  GOVEKXMEXT. 


199 


*'Tliat  petitioners  have  seen  with  deep  concern  the 
recognition  of  the  right  of  every  peox)le  to  change  or 
choose  their  rulers  and  form  of  government,  which  is 
contained  in  the  speech  delivered  by  your  Majesty  at 
the  opening  of  tli^  present  session  of  Parliament,  and 
also  contained  in  the  speech  delivered  on  a  recent 
occasion  at  Aberdeen  by  your  Majesty's  Foreign  Secre- 
tary, as  well  as  in  the  speeches  of  man\^  other  states- 
men and  persons  oi  higli  position  in  England,  and 
in  the  writings  of  the  most  influential  English  news- 
l^apers. 

'"That  by  tlie  general  approval  with  which  those 
speeches  and  writings  have  been  received  in  England, 
and  more  especially  by  the  course  of  policy  pursued  by 
your  Majesty's  government  in  reference  to  the  late 
political  events  in  Central  Italy,  the  Sovereign,  the 
Ministry,  the  Press,  and  People  of  England  have,  in 
the  most  distinct  and  public  manner,  declared  their  ap- 
proval of  the  principle  that  every  people  who  believe 
themselves  to  be  ill  governed  have  aright  to  change  the 
system  of  government  which  is  displeasing  to  them, 
and  to  substitute  for  it  one  of  their  own  choice;  which 
clioice  mav  be  declared  bv  a  ma  joritv  of  the  votes  which 
shall  be  given  on  submitting  the  question  to  a  universal 
suffrage. 

''That,  as  is  well  kno^vn  to  your  Majesty,  fiom  peti- 
tions emanating  from  meetings  at  which  millions  of 
your  Majesty's  subjects  attended,  as  well  as  liom  other 
events  at  various  times,  which  petitioners  deem  it  un- 
necessary to  specify,  a  very  strong  desire  exists  among 
the  Irish  people  to  obtain,  in  place  of  the  present  system 
of  government  in  Ireland,  a  restoration  of  their  native 
Parliament,  and  their  legislative  independence.  That 
petitioners  are  confident  the  overwhelming  majority  of 
the  Irish  people  ardently  desire  this  restoration  of  their 


200 


ELA^'D.  PAST  AND  PKESEXT. 


TiatioLal  constitution,  of  whicli  tliev  believe  tliey  were 
unjustly  deprived ;  yet,  as  your  Majesty's  advisers 
uiav  have  led  vou  to  believe  that  this  desire  for  a 
domesric  legislature  is  entertained  by  only  a  minority 
of  the  population,  petitioners  b^'hold  in  the  proceeding 
so  highly  approved  of  by  your  Mnjf-sty's  niinisters — 
viz.,  a  popular  vote  by  ballot  and  universal  suffrage — a 
means  by  whicli  the  real  wishes  of  a  majority  of  your 
Majesty's  Irish  subjects  may  be  unmistakably  ascer- 
tained. 

*•  Your  petitioners,  therefore,  pray  that  your  Majesty 
may  be  graciously  pleased  to  direct  and  authorize  a 
public  vote  by  ballot  and  universal  suffrage  in  Ireland, 
to  make  known  the  wishes  of  the  people,  whether  for 
a  native  government  and  legislative  independence,  or 
for  the  existing  system  of  government  by  the  Imperial 
Parliament.  Petitioners  trust  that  their  request  will 
be  considered  stronger,  not  weaker,  in  3' our  Majestj^'s 
estimation,  for  being  made  respectfully,  peacefully, 
and  without  violence,  instead  of  being  marked  by  such 
]»roceedings  as  have  occurred  during  the  recent  political 
(thanges  in  Italy,  whicli  have  been  so  largeh'  api^roved 
by  your  Majesty's  ministers. 

•'And  petitioners,  as  in  duty  bound,  will  ever  pray." 

This  petition  received  the  signatures  of  over  half  a 
million  of  adult  Irishmen.  It  was  duly  presented.  .IL 
was  never  answered.  Still  the  English  people  went  on 
declaring  that  a  "vote  of  the  population*'  was  the  way 
to  test  the  legitimacy  or  oppressiveness  of  a  government: 
Still  the  English  newspapers  went  on  adjuring  subject 
peoples  to  strike  if  they  would  be  free.  Every  Fenian 
oiganizer  had  these  quotations  on  his  tongue.  The 
fate  of  the  national  petition  was  pointed  to;  the  con- 
temptuous silence  of  the  sovereign  was  called  disdain 
for  a  peojile  who  would  not  clutch  the  arms  whereby 


THE  EIGHT  OF  SELF-GOVERNMENT. 


201 


alone  their  right  to  choose  their  own  government  could 
be  secured. 

One  article  there  was  in  The  London  Times — a 
magnificent  outburst  of  scathing  taunt  and  passionate 
invective — which  played  a  remarkable  part  in  tlie 
Fenian  operations.  It  was  the  gospel  of  organizers. 
A  glance  at  it  will  show  that  it  was  just  to  their  hand* 

''It  is  quite  time  that  all  the  struggling  nationalities 
should  clearly  understand  that  freemen  have  no  sym- 
pathy with  men  who  do  nothing  but  howl  and  shriek 
in  their  fetters. 

Liberty  is  a  serious  game,  to  be  X)la3"ed  out,  as  the 
Greek  told  the  Persian,  with  knives  and  hatchets,  and 
not  with  drawled  epigrams  and  soft  petitions. 

We  may  prate  among  us  of  moral  courage  and  moral 
force,  but  we  have  also  physical  courage  and  pln^sical 
force  kept  for  ready  use.  Is  this  so  with  the  Italians 
of  Central  Italy?  That  they  wish  to  be  free  is  nothing. 
A  horse,  or  a  sheep,  or  a  canary-bird  has  probably  some 
vague  instinct  toward  a  state  of  freedom;  but  what  we 
ask,  and  what  within  the  last  few  days  we  have  asked 
with  some  doubt,  is.  Are  these  Italians  prepared  to 
fight  for  the  freedom  they  have?  If  so,  well;  iliey  will 
certainly  secure  it;  if  not,  let  Austria  llog  them  with 
scorpions  instead  of  whips,  and  we  in  England  shall 
only  stop  our  ears  against  their  screams. 

"The  highest  spectacle  which  the  world  can  offer  to  a 
freeman  is  to  see  his  brother-man  contending  bravely — 
nay.  lighting  desperately — for  his  liberty.  The  lowest 
sentiment  of  contempt  which  a  freeman  can  feel  is  that 
excited  by  a  wretched  serf  who  has  been  x:)olislied  and 
educated  to  a  full  sense  of  the  de2:radation  of  his 
position,  yet  is  without  the  manhood  to  do  more  than 
utter  piteous  lamentations.'' 


202  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT.  - 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  LAND  WAR  IN  IRELAND. 

The  Famine  Scourge— Heartless  Condkctof  the  Land- 
lords—  The  Relief  Committees — America' s  Generous 
Aid  and  Sympathy —  Terrible  Suffering — Statements 
of  Priests  and  Other  Persons. 

Ireland,  witli  asoil  fruitful  as  Eden,  with  a  climate 
mild  as  woman's  smile,  with  a  people  virtuous,  indus- 
trious, and  brave,  is  yet  the  Niobe  of  nations,  weeping 
and  beggini^'  at  the  doors  of  the  world.  She  has  been 
singularly  blessed  by  God  and  cursed  by  man.  The 
breath  of  healing  is  in  her  air,  the  beauty  of  Paradise 
in  her  picturesque  valleys  and  mountains.  Heaven's 
smile  seems  to  bless  her  fertility,  but  human  wicked- 
ness lias  done  much  to  darken  the  bright  picture 
traced  by  the  hand  of  the  great  Almighty.  Her  green 
and  fertile  fields,  her  grassy  slopes,  her  flowing  rivers 
and  luxuriant  plains  are  but  the  glittering  robe  that 
hides  the  wounds  and  sores  of  an  afflicted  nation — a 
brolven-hearted  people. 

Why,  we  ask,  should  a  nation  so  rich  and  fair  be 
thus  haunted  by  the  grim  spectre  of  poverty  and 
want'^ 

The  answer  is  simple:  it  is  thiss  the  iron  rule  of  a 
foreign  power  crushes  out  her  energy,  and  ghoul-like, 
feeds  upon  her  very  vitals.  In  vain  does  the  Irishman 
toil  in  his  own  land  for  a  living:  he  is  only  the  slave 


THE  LAND  WAR. 


203 


toiling  for  his  master,  tlie  bondman  of  a  rack  renting 
landlord. 

They  plow  and  plant,  they  sow  and  reap,  they  weave  and  spin  all  day. 
The  English  fleet  is  at  their  wharves  to  bear  it  all  away.  ^ 
Their  fathers'  land  the  alien  owns,  the  landlords  own  their  labor; 
Their  mortgaged  lives  have  been  foreclosed  to  glut  their  English 
neighbor. 

God  in  his  mercy  has  betimes  raised  up  prophets  and 
guides  for  the  Irish  peox)le.  Many  of  tliem  have 
passed  away,  but  their  good  deeds  remain  to  stimulate 
the  people  to  renew  the  conflict  for  the  right  to  live  on 
their  own  soil,  foi  the  liberty  to  worship  God  according 
to  the  dictates  of  their  conscience,  and  to  own  the  fruits 
of  their  own  industry. 

Daniel  O'Connell  tore  from  the  grasp  of  English 
tyranny  the  boon  of  Catliolic  Emancipation,  and 
forced  the  power  of  Great  Britain  to  remove  its  cursed 
heel  from  tlie  religious  liberties  of  the  Irish  race.  And 
in  times  like  these,  of  equal  religious  freedom,  when 
on  the  wings  of  prayer  the  nation's  soul  mounts  in  un- 
fettered worship  to  the  Deity  above,  ^vhen  ^the  smoke 
of  incense  rises  free  and  triumphant  from  every 
Catholic  shrine,  in  these  times,  the  sons  and  daughters 
of  Eiin,  from  every  part  of  the  globe,  may  join  with 
throbbing  hearts  in  one  universal  chorus  of  affection- 
ate thanksgiving  to  the  "  Immortal  Dan  of  Ireland." 
The  Liberator  now  lies  in  his  honored  grave,  l)ut  the 
wings  of  his  mighty  spirit  hover  over  us.  The  war  be- 
tween Celt  and  Saxon  rages  hot  and  lierce,  and  the 
soul  of  O'Connell  roams  o'er  the  battle-fleld,  and  that 
soul  will  never  rest  till  the  last  vestii^e  of  En^-lish  rule 
is  swept  from  the  fair  lields  of  Erin,  and  the  flag  of 
the  Golden  Harp  wave^  again  in  triumph  from  the  wails 
of  College  Green.  Once  more  the  people  are  marshaled 
in  dauntless  array.    The  proud  banner  of  agitation 


lEELAiSTD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


again  floats  on  the  breeze.  The  mantle  of  O'Connell 
lias  fallen  on  the  shoulders  of  his  discii:>le,  ^vho  has 
caught  up  the  same  spirit,  breathes  the  same  patriotic 
fire,  is  nerved  with  the  same  indomitable  wi]],  who 
^valks  in  the  same  sure  track,  wields  the  same  unfail- 
ing weapon, — Charles  Stewart  ParnelJ,  the  life  and 
center  of  the  Land  League  of  Ireland. 

As  a  rule,  the  landlords  of  Ireland  have  been  a 
licentious,  improvident  class  of  absentees,  whose  only 
interest  in  the  country  was  the  amount  of  rent  they 
could  drag  out  of  their  unfortunate  tenantry  in  order  to 
live  in  luxurious  st3"le  in  England  and  the  Continent. 
These  vampires  drew  from  the  country  annuallv  over 
seventy  million  dollars,  thus  draining  it  to  the  very 
dregs,  while  they  gave  back  nothing  in  return  but  en- 
larged power  to  their  agents  to  tighten  the  screws  on 
their  unfortunate  tenantry.  Numbers  of  these  spend- 
thrift landlords  came  to  grief,  and  their  estates  came 
to  the  hammer  in  the  Encumbered  Estates  Court,  which 
was  established  in  1848  and  came  into  full  operation  in 
1849. 

A  panic  seized  the  landlords.  Their  estates  were 
thrown  into  the  court  and  sold,  in  many  cases,  at  half 
their  real  value.  This,  though,  did  notbeneflt  the  tenant 
much.  Had  tlie government  then  advanced  the  purchase 
money  in  full  to  the  tenants,  tenant  i^^'oprietorship 
would  have  followed,  and  the  landquestion  would  have 
been  settled  for  good.  As  it  was,  it  onh^nade  the  con- 
dition of  the  tenant  a  hundred  times  worse,  for  English 
capitalists  bought  up  most  of  the  estates,  and  com- 
menced improving  them  by  evicting  the  tenants  and  turn- 
ing the  lands  into  pasture  for  oxen  and  sheeii. 

Ireland,  prostrated  by  famine,  6verrun  by  new  ''  un- 
dertakers," sank  into  a  state  of  syncope,  only  showing 
that  she  was  alive  by  occasionally  shooting  a  landlord  or 


THE  LAND  WAR. 


205 


agent.  The  Fenian  movement  again  awoke  her,  and  the 
old  straggle  between  might  and  right,  the  weak  and  tlie 
strong,  commenced.  Engl:nid  found  that,  she  should  do 
something,  and  as  a  sop  to  Irish  discontent,  and  ho^^ing 
»  that  it  would  conlirm  the  loyalty  of  the  Irish  hierarchy 
and  priestliood  towards  English  rule  in  Ireland,  she 
disestablished  the  Pi'otestant  Chui'ch  in  Ireland  by  a 
bill  passed  July  12th,  1869,  which  bill  received  the 
roval  assent  on  the  26th  of  the  same  month. 

This  did  not  satisfy  the  masses  of  the  people.    It  did 
not  relieve  them  of  their  rack-renting  landlords,  or 
their  rack  rent  either.    Their  grievances  were  more 
political  than  religious,  and  all  felt  that  the  uncertainty 
of  tenure  by  which  the  tenant  held  his  land  and  the 
arbitrary  power  in  the  hands  of  the  landlords  to  raise 
the  rent  at  will,  were  at  the  root  of  the  evil.    Some  w^ell 
disposed  Irish  gentlemen,  recognizing  this  fact,  and. 
believing  that  redress  lay  only  in  an  Irish  Parliament, 
met  in  Dublin  in  May,  1870,  and  established  tiie  Home 
Rule  Association.    It  is  not  necessary  to  follow  the 
history  of  this  organization.    The  people  were  tired  of 
agitation,  particularly  agitation  that  promised  no  im- 
meditate  results,  and  therefore  never  warmed  to  the 
new  program  m  e . 

It  w^as  different  with  the  Land  agitation  though. 
Here  was  a  matter  that  came  home  to  the  doors  of  nine- 
tenths  of  the  Irish  peasantr3\  and  that  promised  them 
immediate  and  practical  results.  It  is  no  wonder, 
therefore,  that  it  met  with  a  ready  response  from  them 
and  that  thev  threw^  themselves  heart  and  soul  into  the 
movement.  So  great  became  the  pressure  that  in  1870 
a  Land  Act  was  passed,  which  tneasure,  though  much 
praised  at  the  time,  has  proved  to  be  short-sighted  and 
abortive.  The  act  did  not  restrain  the  power  of  the 
landlords.    The  Land  Act  of  1870  worked  little  benefit 


206 


IPwELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


to  the  Irish  occupier.  Evictions  actualh^ncreasedl  In 
the  three  years  before  its  passing,  the  ejectments  on 
notice  to  quit  vvere  4,2j3;  in  the  three  snlxsequent  years 
they  readied  .0,041,  showing  an  increase  of  1.888,  in 
the  next  three  vears  tbev  were  8.439!  These  Ho-ures 
represent  only  tlie  capricious  evictions,  and  do  not 
inchide  ejectment  ior  non-payment  of  rent  or  non  title. 
AVhile  it  recognized  the  grievous  wrong  done  to  the 
victim  of  a  capricious  eviction,  the  act  left  lull  power 
to  perpetrate  what  it  thus  admitted  to  be  unjust.  It 
still  left  the  tenant  at  the  mercy  of  the  cupidity,  the 
malice,  or  the  whim  of  his  landlord.  Instead  of  giving 
the  Irish  peasant  security  of  tenure,  it  gave  the  county 
court  judge,  at  his  discretion,  the  power  of  imposing 
on  the  evicting  landlord  a  limited  j^ecuniary  line.  In 
other  words,  it  gave  the  homeless,  and  perhaps  penni- 
less tenant,  ''the  right  to  a  law-suit." 

Before  we  enter  into  a  detailed  account  of  the  opera- 
tions of  the  Land  Lea^rue  oriranization  and  the  horrors 
of  the  famine  of  1880,  we  will  take  a  retrospective  view  of 
how^  the  land  was  held  in  common  by  the  i)eople  in  Ire- 
land previous  to  Christianity  and  up  to  the  time  that 
the  English  invaders  introduced  the  feudal  svstem. 
The  Brehon  code  of  laws  held  that  land  was  the  com- 
mon property  of  all.  and  that  the  humblest  clansman  had 
as  good  a  right  to  live  on  its  fruits  as  the  most  power- 
ful chieftain.  The  grand  fundamental  principle  of  the 
Brehon  law  was  that  as  the  air  we  breathe,  and  without 
wdiich  we  could  not  live,  was  free  to  all,  so  also  the  land 
which  is  necessary  for  our  existence,  should  be  free  or 
common  to  all.  Society  in  ancient  Ireland  was  not  based 
on  the  family  principle  as  understood  by  us.  The 
family  meant  the  tribe  or  clan,  oftentimes  number- 
ing  thousands  of  persons  all  bearing  the  same  name, 
as  O'Neill  or  O'Brien,  but  the  chief  was  called  by 


THE  LAND  WAR. 


201 


way  of  distinction,  The  O^Neill  or  Tlie  O'Brien.  An 
Irish 'family  in  this  sense  meant  all  who  belonged  to 
the  tribe  or  dan.  Each  clan  or  sept  had  its  own 
particular  territory,  carefully  defined,  beyond  the 
limits  of  which  they  could  not  encroach  without  en- 
countering the  hostility  of  ^he  neighboring  clan  or  sept. 

The  territory  beh)ng-ing  to  the  sept  was  called  after 
the  tribe,  as  O'Donnell's  country,  etc.  The  land  was 
considered  the  common  property  of  the  tribe,  and  dif- 
ferent  portions  of  it  were  assigned  lo  different  members 
thereof,  under  direction  of  the  chief,  but  according  to 
well-defined  laws  and  usages.  None  but  those  belongs 
ing  to  the  tribe  were  entitled  to  tribe  land,  and  they 
were  entitled  in  proportion  to  their  antiquity  in  the 
sept,  and  therefoi'e  the  proofs  of  relationship  and 
descent  were  carefully  preserved  in  Irish  families,  as 
carefully  as  w^e  now  preserve  our  legal  records  and. 
documents. 

Tlie  chieftaincy  was  not  hereditary,  for  any  member 
of  the  family  or  sept  was  eligible,  and  it  oftentimes 
happened  that  the  heir  by  descent  was  set  aside  for 
some  more  worthy  member  of  the  tribe.  The  head  of 
the  organization  was  styled  lord  of  the  countr}^  which 
the  tribe  inhabited.  He  apportioned  the  lands  among 
the  members  of  the  tribe,  and  received  a  tribute  from 
them  as  a  voluntar}^  offering  to  support  his  dignity,  but 
beyond  this  he  had  no  special  interest  in  the  lands. 

The  members  of  the  Irish  septs  had  a  loyal  regard 
for  the  person,  the  honor,  and  the  dignity  of  their  chief. 
That  he  might  sustain  that  dignity  in  a  becoming 
manner,  they  assigned  to  him  certain  lands  for  the 
maintenance  and  support  in  princely  style  of  himself 
and  his  family.  So  jealous  were  they  of  his  maintain- 
ing a  proper  show  of  authority,  that  it  was  a  part  of 
the  written  law  that  he  should  never  appear  in  public 


208 


IKELAT^D,  PAST  A^D  PEESENT 


without  a  retinue,  and  tiie  penaltj^  for  disregarding  this 
law  was  deprivation  of  his  rank.    He  was  obliged  to 
maintain  a  bard  to  chant  the  glories  of  the  tribe,  a 
chronicler  to  record  its  actions,  a  brehon,  or  chancellor, 
to  expound  the  law,  various  oflBcers  to  preserve  tlie 
pedigrees  of  the  plan,  and  a  certain  number  of  mounted 
men — knights  in  waiting,  in  fact,  whatever  they  may 
be  called  in  name, — to  defend  the  rights  of  the  sept. 
To  maintain  all  this  state  and  meet  all  this  expense,  a 
large  part  of  the  lands  of  the  tribe  were  necessarily 
arssigned  to  him,  but  as  to  those  lands  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  he  held  them  really  as  a  tenant  Irom  the  tribe. 
The  members  of  the  tribe  also  paid  to  the  chief  a  cer- 
tain annual  tribute,  proportioned  to  their  holdings,  not 
of  land  alone,  but  of  other  property,  cattle,  etc.,  all  of 
which  was  protected  by  the  chief  and  his  warrior  band  ; 
so  that  this  tribute  was  not  paid  as  rent  of  land,  but 
contributed  as  a  tax,  to  provide  means  of  protection. 
The  lord  was,  as  to  his  lands,  a  tenant  at  will  of  the 
tribe,  because  he  held  those  lands  by  virtue  of  being 
chief,  and  he  held  his  position  as  chief  at  the  Avill 
of  the  tribe,  and  many  a  time  in  Irish  history  did 
a  tribe  depose  its  chief  and  put  another  in  his  place, 
mostly,  however,  some  member  of  the  family  of  the 
chief,  and  sometimes  even  of  the  sept.    This  system  of 
tribal  occupation  of  the  land  was  in  force  in  Ireland 
for  over  a  thousand  years.    It  has  been  exhaustively 
handled  in  a  lately  published  work  in  several  volumes 
under  the  title  of  "  The  Brehon  Laws,"  being  so  called 
after  the  Brehons,  or  law-givers,  whose  duty  it  was  to 
preserve,  compile,  andadminster  the  laws  of  the  country. 
The  feudal  laws  which  prevailed  at  the  time  ihrougli 
out  the  rest  of  Europe,  and  which  were  subsequently 
introduced  by  the  Anglo-Norman  conquerors  into  Ire 
land,  reduced  the  peasant  to  the  rank  cf  serf  making 


THE  LAND  WAR. 


him  solely  dependent  upon  the  lord  from  whom  he 
occupied  the  land  at  pleasure,  giving  him  in  return  rent 
either  in  the  shape  of  military  services  or  payment  of 
some  liind.  The  one  begot  a  state  of  serfdom  which 
degraded  the  people  to  the  rank  of  slaves,  built  a  power  - 
ful aristocracy,  and  left  the  unfortunate  peasant  at  the 
merciless  rule  of  some  despotic  landlord,  as  is  the 
case  in  Ireland  to-day.  The  other  made  each  man  feel 
that  he  was  as  good  as  another,  and  that  he  occupied 
the  land,  not  by  the  toleration  of  some  exacting  lord, 
but  by  absolute  right,  and  thus  felt  as  independent  in 
his  claims  as  the  chieftain  himself. 

These  Brehon  Laws  were  w^ise  regulations  for  the 
times  and  circumstances  under  which  they  were 
enacted,  but  certainly  would  not  be  applicable  to  the 
government  of  the  land  or  the  control  of  society  as  at 
present  organized.  They  explain  much  to  us,  though, 
that  may  seem  inexplicable  in  the  Irish  character. 

They  explain  why  Irishmen  in  Ireland  lived  for  gene- 
ration after  generation  in  one  certain  place,  each  one 
dwelling  in  his  own  territory,  because  to  leave  his 
territory  was  to  separate  himself  from  his  tribe,  "with 
small  chance  of  acquiring  anything  like  eqnal  social 
standing  in  any  other  tribe. 

Tlie\^  also  explain  their  pow^erful  attachment,  not  to 
land  in  general,  but  to  the  lands  of  their  particular  terri- 
tory. Tliev  will  make  unheard-of  sacrifices  to  retain 
the  land  which  has  been  in  their  families  for  unnum- 
bered genei  arions,  but  once  uproot  them  from  that,  and 
set  tlieni  adrift  in  the  world,  and  thev  have  no  more 
affection  for  mere  land  than  is  possessed  by  men  in 
general,  and.  tliis  answers  the  question,  so  often  asked. 

Why  is  U  that  Irishmen,  so  furious  to  possess  the  soil 
in  their  own  country,  when  they  come  to  America  care 
so  little  to  go  on  the  land?'' 


210 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


They  exi^lain,  too,  why  the  history  of  Ireland  shows 
so  much  internal  conflict,  so  different  from  that  of  other 
nations.  It  was,  in  fact,  an  aggregation  of  small  separate 
nations,  each  one  outgrowing  its  boundaries,  always 
crowding  upon  and  often  trespassing  upon  those  ad- 
joining. 

They  explain  also  a  certain  difficulty  there  has 
always  been  experienced  in  getting  Irishmen  to  act 
together  harmoniously  as  a  whole.  Tliey  were  never 
organized  as  a  nation  in  anything  like  the  way  in  which 
modern  nations  are  organized.  The  individual  members 
of  a  tribe  practically  never  recognized  any  autnority 
but  that  of  their  chief.  Tliey  tilled  tlieir  lands  or  went 
forth  to  battle  just  as  their  chief  directed,  and  when- 
ever the  chief  said,  ''Let's  go  home,''  home  they  went. 

We  have  so  far  digressed  in  order  to  give  our  readers 
some  conception  of  the  Brehon  laws  and  their  applica- 
tion in  Ireland.  Though  salutary  and  wise  in  man}^ 
respects,  tliey  paved  the  way  for  the  conquest  of 
Ireland.  Neighboring  chiefs,  like  the  Indian  tribes, 
were  continaally  at  variance,  and  their  jealousies  and 
local  associations  kept  them  from  combining  in  a  great 
national  struggle  either  against  the  Danes  or  the  English. 
Besides,  what  interest  had  a  tribe  in  P'ermanagh  or 
Tipperar\Mn  the  fact  that  the  Danes  held  Dublin  or 
AVaterford?  They  were  more  anxious  to  preserve  them- 
selves from  tlie  encroachment  of  a  neighboring  tribe 
than  from  an  invader  who  was  so  far  awav.  Though 
tribes  and  chiefs  made  desperate  efforts  to  repel  both 
Saxon  and  Dane  from  their  own  territory,  Irish  history 
compels  us  to  make  tlie  admission  that  it  was  hard  to 
combine  them  to  make  a  united  effort  to  repel  the 
common  enemy.  The  Brehon  laws  recognized  the  fact 
that  the  soil  of  a  country  is  not  a  human  institution;  it 
is  a  Divine  creation,  rendered  absolutely  necessary 


THE  LAND  WAK. 


211 


for  our  support,  and  when  dealing  with  this  matter, 
governments  are  only  trustees,  guardians  of  a  sacred 
trust,  pledged  by  virtue  of  their  office  to  administer  the 
public  estate  for  the  public  good — an  estate  which  has 
been  solemnly  willed,  bequeathed,  and  dedicated  in 
perpetuity  by  God  himself,  to  be  the  common  property 
of  the  entire  people.  Gfovernments,  then,  are  not 
owners,  but  the  administrators  of  the  public  lands,  nor 
can  they  confiscate  nor  deprive  a  people  of  their 
inheritance.  The  people  and  the  land  are  one,  and 
those  whom  God  has  united  let  no  man  put  asunder. 
When,  then,  we  see  the  whole  territory  of  Ireland  locked 
up  in  the  possession  of  a  few  individuals,  and  the  great 
majorit}^  of  the  community  swept  out  into  the  roads  to 
die  of  starvation,  the  very  act  cries  to  heaven  for 
vengeance. 

Jn  addition  to  the  ftindam3ntal  principles  whicli 
recognize  the  right  of  the  people  to  the  soil  of  the 
country,  there  are  other  reasons  why  England  should 
abolish  those  odious  laws  which  crush  th*-  life-blood 
out  of  the  people,  and  invest  the  Irish  landlords  with 
the  power  of  life  and  death  over  their  tenants.  By 
the  operation  and  tyrannical  enactments  of  English 
laws  all  means  of  sustenance  save  one  by  which  men 
can  earn  tlieir  livelihood  have  been  closed  against  the 
people  of  Ireland,  that  one  sole  means  which  British 
rapacity  has  left  being  the  privilege  of  agricultural 
labor.  Surely,  then,  if  agricultural  labor  is  the  only 
hope  to  whicli  the  Irish  can  cling  to  save  their  families 
from  pitiless  starvatioii,  the  laws  affecting  that  labor 
should  be  so  liberal  and  generous  in  their  nature 
that  the  laborer  by  his  toil  may  amply  provide  for  all 
reasonable  wants.  But  the  case  is  not  so.  No  laws 
are  more  barbarous  and  cruel.  But  why  should  the 
millions  of  Ireland  depend  solely  on  ngricultural labors 


212 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESEXT. 


Are  tliere  no  other  means?  Undoubtedly,  but  English 
tyranny  forbids  them.  Until  very  recently,  the  penal 
laws  were  in  full  sway.  B}^  that  code,  nine-tenths  ot" 
the  population  of  Ireland  were  excluded  from  all 
honorable  professions  by  which  many  others  earn  a 
noble  independence.  The  great  bulk  of  the  Irish  poptila- 
tion  is  Catholic,  and  no  Catholic  could  be  a  physician, 
a  lawyer,  a  teacher,  or  a  member  of  any  distinguished 
calling.  If  a  man  wished  to  practice  surgery  or 
medicine,  or  be  a  member  of  any  other  profession,  the 
Jaw  prohibited  him  simply  on  account  of  his  religion. 
In  like  manner,  the  trade  of  Ireland  was  crushed  out, 
thus  throwing  the  people  solely  on  the  land  for  subsist- 
ence. As  an  instance  of  how  Irish  industries  were 
crippled  by  English  legislation,  w^e  would  simi)ly  refer  to 
the  linen  and  woolen  trade  of  Ireland.  Both  were  ex- 
tensively exported  in  the  fifteenth  century.  The  woolen 
traders  in  England  grew  jealous,  and  were  determined  if 
possible  to  suppress  the  manufacture  of  wool  in  Ireland. 
Accordingly,  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, the  exportation  of  wool  from  Ireland  w^as  ab- 
solutely prohibited.  This  was  a  severe  blow  upon  Irish 
industry.  It  threw  thousands  out  of  employment,  and 
impoverished  the  nation.  That  one  industry  alone  was  a 
great  source  of  wealth.  Irish  wool  fouhd  a  ready  market 
in  France,  Belgium,  the  Xetherlands,  and  other  foreign 
countries,  so  much  so  that  Dean  Swift  states  that 
foreign  silver  became  the  current  money  of  the  cotmtry, 
and  that  a  man  could  not  receive  a  luindred  pounds 
without  finding  in  it  the  coin  of  all  the  Northern 
j-jowers, — the  result  of  the  woolen  trade.  The  enter- 
prise w^as  stopped,  and  the  consequences  were  indeed 
sad.  Irish  industry  felt  that  it  had  no  place  under 
English  rule.  The  prohibition  was,  in  fact,  an  official 
notice  from  the  English  crown  to  the  peoj)le  of  Ireland, 


0 


THE  LAND  WAR.  213 

that  they  must  not  engage  in  manufacture,  and  that  if 
they  did,  all  the  profits  must  go  across  the  Channel- 
But  the  home  demand  was  still  large,  the  enterprise 
was  still  kept  afloat  by  the  Irish  market.  When  the 
English  discovered  this  they  procured  fresh  legislation, 
and  the  manufacture  was  suppressed  entirely. 

We  will  now  come  down  to  the  causes  that  produced 
the  famine  in  Ireland  and  that  gave  rise  to  the  Land 
League  organization. 

For  a  few  years  after  the  passing  of  the  Land  Act  in 
1870,  owing  to  the  prosperous  state  of  British  trade, 
and  favorable  seasons,  the  produce  of  the  Irish  farmers 
was  abundant  and  fetched  a  high  price.  The  landlords, 
taking  advantage  of  this  temporary  prosperity,  raised 
the  rents,  in  some  cases  actually  doubling  them.  The 
competition  for  land  became  very  great,  and  it  ran  up 
to  a  fictitious  value. 

Suddenly  the  increasing  trade  of  England  declined, 
and  America  commenced  pouring  into  her  markets 
enormous  supplies  of  breadstuff,  preserved  meat,  and 
even  live  cattle.  This  of  course  brought  down  prices 
and  made  it  almost  impossible  for  the  farmer  to  j)ay 
the  exorbitant  rent  which  he  contracted  for  under 
more  favorable  auspices.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that 
the  season  of  1877  was  wet  and  inclement,  so  much  so, 
that  the  crops  rotted  in  the  ground  and  the  potatoes 
became  a  total  failure.  This  the  farmers  might  get 
over,  but  unfortunately  the  summers  of  '78  and  '79  were 
even  worse,  and  both  the  farmers  and  peasantry  were 
r driven  to  bankruptcy  and  starvation. 

In  the  meantime  the  landlords,  Sliylock-like,  were 
exacting  their  pound  of  flesh  in  the  shape  of  the  last 
penny  of  the  rack-rents  which  they  had  imposed  on  the 
farmer  in  prosperous  times. 

Added  to  the  failure  of  the  j^otato,  npon  whicli  he 


214 


IRELAXDj  PAST  AND  TKESEXT. 


relied  chiefly  for  food,  the  cottier  of  Connanght,  whose 
years  rent  for  the  patch  upon  which  his  i^otatoes  are 
grown  is  annuall}"  brought  over  from  England  in  the 
shape  of  harvest  earnings  there,  found  this  resource 
also  cut  off  by  the  scarcity  of  employment,  caused  by 
the  bad  state  of  Englisli  trade.    Thus  the  numj^er  of 
Irish  laborers  carried  by  the  Midland  Great  AVestein 
Railway  of  Ireland  for  harvesting  in  England  fell  froiri 
twentj^-seven  thousand  to  twenty  thousand  in  1S79, 
involving  (according  to  the  Irish  official  statistician,  Dr. 
Hancock)  a  loss  of  £100,000  to  the  laborers,  while 
those  who  did  go  found  little  employment  on  their 
arrival. 

Owing  to  these  circumstances,  a  terrible  famine  en- 
sued, which  even  threatened  to  equal  in  intensitj-  and 
atrocity  the  terrible  famine  of  1847  and  '48,  and  would 
have  done  so,  had  not  the  s3Mnpathy  of  the  world,  par- 
ticularly America,  resjDonded  to  the  appeal  of  a  people 
starving  in  the  midst  of  plenty,  dying  from  hunger 
while  ruthless  landlords  were  dej^riving  them  of  their 
last  meal  and  even  drac^ing  the  very  beds  from  under 
them.    In  1880  the  famine  had  extended,  but  botli 
money  and  relief,  ships  from  America  brought  succor 
and  life  to  suffering  thousands.    There  were  seveial 
relief  committees  formed,  nameh%    The  Mansion  House 
llelief  Committe,"  over  which  the  then  Lord  Major 
of  Dublin,  Hon.  E.  D.  Giay,  M.  P.,  presided.  "The 
Duchess  of  Marlborough  Committee"  was  a  kind  of 
aristocratic  committee  bv  which  royalty  could  earn  a 
cheap  notoriety  for  benevolence  and  charity  by  conde- 
scendingly patronizing  it;  still  it  did  good  and  effective 
service.    Then  there  came  "  The  Bennett  Relief  Com- 
mittee," which  was  appointed  to  distribute  the  one 
hundred  thousand  dollars  contributed  bv  James  Gor- 
don  Bennett,  Esq.,  of  The  Kevo  YorJc  Herald.  This 


THE  LAND  WAR. 


215 


committee  liob- a- nobbed  with  tlie  Murlborongh  Com- 
mittee, and  in  fact  became  auxiliary  to  it. 

The  Land  League  Relief  Committee  ^Yas  the  one 
which  did  most  good  for  the  i^oor,  and  the  one  tlirough 
which  the  Irish  in  America  poured  forth  their  aid  to 
their  kinsmen  Lt  bome.  As  an  instance  of  the  wide- 
spread and  terrible  nature  of  the  famine,  we  quote  the 
following  extracts  from  reports,  speeches,  and  letters 
published  at  the  time.  The  doctors  who  were  sent  out 
by  the  commissioners  to  report  on  the  state  of  the 
country  gave  a  fearful  i)icture  of  fever,  njisery.  and 
want,  of  which  this  is  a  specimen: 

*' Entering  one  house,  fairly  circumstanced,  we  were 
received  by  the  mother,  pale,  worn,  feeble,  scarcely 
able  to  move  about,  after  a  severe  attack  of  fever.  Two 
or  three  children,  convalescents,  were  sitting  in  the 
kitchen,  and  in  an  inner  room  lay,  far  advanced  in 
malignant  typhus,  her  father-in-law,  husband,  and  two 
grown-up  daughters.  L'ntil  a  few  days  ago  she  had  to 
attend  to  all.  Even  now,  though  an  old  woman  had 
been  got  as  nurse,  the  sick  son  had  been  obliged  to  take 
the  sicker  father  into  his  bed,  in  order  to  restrain  him 
w^hilst  delirious.  This  house  is  worse  than  a  fever- word — 
it  is  a  fever-furnace.  The  family,  throughout  this  ter- 
rible time  of  illness,  have  been  dependent  for  very  life 
upon  the  support  of  the  Local  Eelief  Committee. 
Other  cases  have  their  own  peculiarly  painful  features. 
In  one,  at  Carne,  the  young  husband  is  a  victim;  in 
another  the  wife  lies  sick,  with  scarce  a  rag  of  bed- 
clothes. At  Ballintadder,  in  a  musty,  dark  room,  two 
children  were  tossing  in  fever  upon  some  straw  on  the 
floor,  and  another  ailing  upon  the  poor  bed.  In  an 
adjoining  cabin,  five  children  had  been  ailing  together; 
two  were  up  when  we  entered,  and  three  lying  in  fever, 
'heads  and  points'  on  an  old  bedstead,  covered  with  a 


216 


IKELATs^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


couple  of  potato-sacks.  In  the  midst  of  their  affliction 
the  father  gives  a  refuge  to  an  infirm  and  aged  sister. 
It  may  be  mentioned,  as  adding  to  the  sombre  charac- 
ter of  the  scene,  that  these  people  are  under  notice  of 
ejectment." 

A  committee,  including  the  P.  P.  of  Kilcoo,  County 
Down,  writing  to  the  Mansion  House  Committee  under 
date  February  12th,  1880,  says. 

''It  is  painful  and  humiliating  to  have  to  acknowl- 
edge that  even  in  this,  the  premier  county  of  Ulster, 
there  exists  distress  deep-felt  and  widespread.  iS'othing 
but  sheer  necessity  can  force  the  people  to  acknowledge 
want  and  ask  relief.  They  will  struggle  on  amidst 
difficulties,  and  continue  to  conceal  their  misery  until 
their  blanched  cheeks  betray  them  and  tell  the  observer 
rliat  the  gnawing  x>ain  is  wearing  away  their  vitals. 
Such  has  been  the  case  in  '46  and  '47,  when  the  gaunt 
spectre,  Famine,  stalked  over  the  land,  and  decimated 
a  famished  people,  and  such,  unhappily,  is  the  case 
liere  now  in  this  County  of  Down.  At  all  events,  such  is 
the  case  in  this  parish  of  Upper  Kilcoo,  with  a  population 
of  ovei*  3,000,  spread  over  thirteen  townlands,  situate  in 
a  mountainous  district,  where,  owing  to  the  inclemency 
of  the  season,  the  i^oor  peo])le  did  not  obtain  a  particle 
of  peat  from  the  bogs — their  source  of  fuel — and  their 
crops  were  almost  completely  lost.  Their  means,  which 
Avere  at  best  but  slender,  have  been  gradually  diminish- 
ing for  the  past  few  years,  and  are  now  exhausted,  as 
is  also  their  credit.  Hence  we  find  that  the  fuel  of  the 
-  majority  is  the  furze  and  heath  which  they  gather  from 
'  the  hill-sides;  and  the  food  of  many — alas!  too  many — 
aninsufficientquantity  of  Indian  meal  porridge,  without 
a  single  drop  of  milk  to  make  it  palatable.  It  is  truly  a 
pitiable  pligh.t  in  whicli  hundreds  of  the  poor  peo- 
ple here  now  find  themselves — partially  without  food, 


THE  LAND  AVAR. 


217 


Avholly  without  fuel  or  means  to  procure  it ;  without 
seed  for  the  land,  without  clothing,  and  without 
credit." 

The  famous  Colonel  "Chinese"  Gordon,  late  Secre- 
tary to  the  Viceroy  of  India,  and  Governor  of  tlie 
Soudan,  writing  from  Gleiigariff,  County  Cork,  in 
November,  1880  (published  in  Tlie  Times,  3d  Decem- 
ber), said  :  "I  must  say,  Erom all  accounts  and  from  my 
own  observation,  that  the  state  of  our  fellow-country- 
men in  the  parts  T  have  named  is  w^orse  than  that  of 
any  x)eople  in  the  world,  let  alone  Europe.  I  believe 
that  these  people  are  made  as  we  are,  that  they  are 
patient  beyond  belief,  loyal,  but  at  the  same  time 
broken-spirited  and  desperate,  living  on  the  verge  of 
starvation  in  places  in  which  we  would  not  keep  our 
cattle.  The  Bulgarians,  Anatolians,  Chinese,  and  In- 
dians are  better  off  than  many  of  them  are.  ...  I  am 
not  well  off,  but  I  would  offer  Lord  Ban  try  or  his  agent 
(J.  W.  Payne,  J.  P.)  £1,000  if  either  of  them  would 
live  one  week  in  one  of  these  poor  devils'  places,  and 
feed  as  these  people  do." 

Father  McKenna,  P.  P.  of  Pettigo,  County  Donegal, 
reporting  on  the  state  of  his  parish,  said  :  "In  truth,  the 
distress  is  now  assuming  here  an  alarming  appearance. 
On  yesterday,  our  day  of  meeting  at  Mulleek  to  afford 
relief,  the  crowd  was  so  great,  looking  for  anything  at 
all  we  could  give,  that  it  occupied  the  Kelief  Committee 
up  to  two  hcurs  after  night  to  get  through  our  list  of 
applicants,  and  we  had  to  give  up  the  task  nearly  in 
hox^eless  despair  of  knowing  wdiat  to  do  to  get  the 
shivering  creatures  away.  It  vras  sad  to  see  hundreds 
crowded  together  around  the  door  of  where  the  Com- 
mittee met,  waiting  from  twelve  o'clock  noon  to  eight 
at  night,  under  drenching  rain,  for  whatever  little  we 
could  give.    From  Is.  to  2s.  6d.  was  our  rule,  and  in 


218 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


the  end  liad  to  curtail  even  these  small  sums,  sooner 
than  hear  the  cries  of  the  disappointed.  Really  the 
people  are  on  the  point  of  dying.  If  something  be  not 
done  very  soon  to  give  employment,  alms  will  not  at  ./ 
all  meet  the  crisis  much  longer.  On  last  Monday  in 
Pettigo  several  poor  women  and  strong  men  came  to 
the  priest's  house,  and  some  of  them  fainted  with 
hunger  and  exhaustion.  The  apj)earance  of  the  poor  is 
appalling." 

Rev.  Thomas  Cummins,  C.  C.  of  Scotstown,  County 
Monaglian,  writes  :  "The  landlords  here  are  giving  no 
work  except  to  the  process- server ;  the  poor  have  no 
credit,  and  the  father  and  mother  are  in  hopeless  want  of 
work,  and  their  children  in  want  of  bread.  I  know  of 
thirty-rhree  homes — if,  indeed,  a  tenement  without  a  win- 
dow could  be  called  a  home — in  which  there  is  neither 
food  nor  fire.  I  may  say  there  are  fifteen  of  these  in  ex- 
treme want.  Instance  the  following :  Yesterday  evening 
I  was  called  on  to  visit  a  patient.  When  I  reached  the 
hovel  it  was  not  dark,  vet  the  family,  seven  in  all,  were 
in  bed  ;  and  why?  because  they  had  eaten  the  scanty 
fare  the}^  collected  during  the  day,  they  had  no  fire  to 
warm  them,  and  their  remedy  was  to  lie  in  a  cold  room, 
on  cold  beds,  with  cold,  empty  stomachs;  and  I  fear 
my  patient  is  a  cold  corpse  now  amongst  them  ;  and  if 
I  was  constituted  judge  and  jury  over  tlie  cause  of  her 
death,  my  verdict  would  be  'want  of  food.' " 

Father  Harte,  P.  P.,  Kilgarvin,  County  Mayo,  writes : 
*'Ifc  is  with  feelings  of  pain  and  regret  I  beg  to  call 
vour  attention,  and  the  attention  of  themembeTs  of  the 
Mansion  House  Committee,  to  the  dei^lorable  condition 
of  about  200  families  in  this  parish.  They  are  in  great 
distress — the  most  of  them  in  absolute  want.  Thev 
have  nothing  now  to  live  on,  I  might  say,  but  Indian 
meal,  and  not  enough  of  that  same  j  some  of  them  with- 


THE  LAND  WAR. 


219 


out  a  drop  of  milk,  without  fuel,  and  all  without  credit, 
having  their  clotlies  pawned  and  their  children  half- 
naked.    We  were  hoping  day  after  day  that  the  govern- 
ment would  come  to  our  aid,  but,  unfortunately,  it  was  i 
hoping  against  hope." 

The  parish  priest  and  Protestant  incumbent  of  Ennis- 
crone,  County  Sligo,  in  a  joint  letter,  say:  ''In  one  tow^n- 
land  alone  there  are  at  present  ten  families  suffering  from 
fever,  which,  in  the  opinion  of  the  medical  officer  of  the 
district,  is  induced  by  cold,  want  of  clothing,  and  scarcity 
of  proper  nourishment.  We,  in  common  with  ever}^  well- 
wisher  of  Ireland,  would  prefer  anything  to  gratuitous 
relief,  and  therefore  we  have  earnesth^  appealed  to  the 
landlords  of  this  parish  to  assist  their  tenants  by  means 
of  remunerative  employment  in  improving  their  own  es- 
tates. We  have  had  some  favorable  promises  to  the 
above  effect  from  all;  yet,  with  one  or  two  honorable  ex- 
ceptions, these  promises  have  never  been  realized;  they 
have  picked  up  what  rents  they  could,  and  then, 
oblivious  of  their  own  promises,  have  lent  a  deaf  ear  to 
the  pitiful  entreaties  of  their  starving  tenantry." 

The  rector  of  Clondwhid,  County  Cork,  writes  r 
"This  is  a  wild  and  mountainous  parish  of  27,000 
acres.  There  are  no  resident  landlords.  Father  Ring, 
R.  C.  C,  has  just  been  sitting  with  me.  Xo  one  kncJws 
the  distress  of  the  people  better  than  he  does.  Any 
relief  you  send  us  will  be  administered  by  Father 
Ring  (Father  Walsh  is  upwards  of  ninety  years  old), 
myself,  and  Mr.  Pearson.  Father  Ring  told  me  to- 
day that  he  has  visited  poor,  who  w^ere  obliged  to  re- 
main in  bed  from  hunger." 

The  parish  priest  and  rector  of  Tegmon,  County  Wex- 
ford, wrote:  "  We  have  found  59  families,  or  23C  persons, 
more  or  less  suffering,  and  we  are  convinced  that  many 
of  the  farming  class  are  in  great  want,  but  are  too 


220 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


proud  to  disclose  their  poverty.  The  distress  is  nearly 
universal;  the  destitution  in  many  families  of  small 
farmers  is  complete,  as  well  as  the  laboring  class,  and 
nothing  but  the  most  energetic  exertions  of  the 
charitable  will  be  able  to  save  them  from  death  bv 
starvation.  The  total  quantity  of  harvest  produce  of 
all  kinds  would,  in  our  opinion,  not  suffice  for  the 
home  consumption;  and  being  compelled  by  landlords 
to  sell,  to  pay  their  rents,  what  they  should  have  kept 
for  food  for  their  families,  are  now  reduced  to  deplor- 
able suffering;  without  employment,  without  food — 
save  what  the  benevolent  give  them — without  fuel,  with- 
out bed-clothing,  their  condition  is  truly  wretched  In 
this  locality  landlords  will  not  assist  their  tenants 
by  providing  seeds,  etc.,  for  the  approaching  sowing 
season;  and  to  sow  any  they  may  have  left  would 
be  madness." 

We  could  fill  a  volume  with  extracts  from  letters 
from  all  parts  of  Ireland,  showing  how  deep  and  wide- 
spread the  famine  was  and  how  indifferent  the  landlords 
were  to  the  destitution  and  suffering  of  their  tenantry. 

James  Eedpath,  the  well-known  correspondent,  in 
giving  a  sketch  of  the  state  of  Ireland  at  the  time,  for 
he  bad  traveled  over  the  country  to  report  on  the  state 
of  the  farmers,  savs: 

^'From  every,  county  come  official  announcements 
that  the  destitution  is  increasing. 

A  geographical  allocation  of  the  distress  gives  to 
the— 


County  Leitrim  (in  round  numbers)   47,000 

Roscommon    "          "   4G.0C0 

Slijro             "         "    58.000 

Gaiway         "         "    124,000 

Mayo            "         "    143,000 


These  round  numbers  are  thirty-seven  hundred  and 


THE  LAND  AVAR.  221 

fifty  under  the  exact  figures.  What  need  of  verbal 
evidence  to  sustain  figures  so  appalling? 

"  From  each  of  these  counties  on  the  western  coast, 
and  from  every  parish  of  them,  the  rej^orts  of  tlie 
committees  give  out  the  same  dirge-like  notes:  'Xo 
food,'  'no  clothing,'  'bed clothing  pawned/  'chil- 
dren lialf-naked,'  'women  clad  in  unwomanly  rags,' 
'  no  fuel,.'  'destitution  appalling,'  'privation  beyond 
descrij^tion,'  'many  are  suffering  from  hunger,'  'seed 
potatoes  and  oats  are  being  consumed  by  the  j^eojole,' 
'  their  famine-stricken  appearance  would  make  the 
stoniest  heart  feel  for  them,'  'some  families  are 
actually  starving,  and  even  should  works  be  started  the 
people  are  too  weak  now  to  work.'  These  saddening 
phrases  are  not  a  bunch  of  rhetorical  expressions:  each 
one  of  them  is  a  literal  quotation  from  tlie  business-like 
reports  of  the  local  committees  of  the  Mansion  House! 

"  In  the  province  of  Connaught,  the  destitution  is  so 
general  and  profound  that  I  could  not  tell  you  what  I 
myself  saw  there,  within  the  limits  of  a  lecture.  I  shall 
select;  one  of  the  least  distressfnl  counties — the  County 
Sligo — and  call  ai2:ain  eye-witnesses  of  its  misery. 

"And  my  first  witness  shall  be  a  distinguished 
bishoi),  ^t,  that  time  unfriendly  to  Mr.  Parnell — Bishop 
McCormack. 

"  The  Bishop  wrote  to  me  that  in  each  of  the  twenty- 
two  parishes  of  his  diocese  there  prevails  'real  and 
undoubted  distress';  and  that,  from  the  returns  made 
to  him  by  his  priests,  he  finds  that  the  number  on  the 
parochial  relief  lists  is  from  seventy  to  seventy-five  per 
cent,  of  the  whole  x^opulation  of  the  diocese.  His  Lord- 
ship adds  that  this  state  of  destitution  must  last  till 
Angust. 

"Good  words  are  like  good  coins — they  lose  their 
value  if  they  are  uttered  too  freely.    I  have  used  the 


222 


lUELAIS^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


word  distress  so  often  that  I  fear  it  may  pall  on  you. 
Let  ns  test  it  in  the  fire  of  the  sorrow  of  Sligo. 

"Dr.  Canon  Finn,  of  Ballymote,  wrote  to  me  that  the 
priests  in  his  parish  tell  him  that  the  little  children 
often  come  to  school  without  having  had  a  moutliful  of 
breakfast  to  eat,  and  that  vomiting  and  stomach-sick- 
ness is  common  among  them. 
^'Why? 

"  'I  know  whole  families,'  writes  the  Canon,  ^  that 
have  to  supplement  what  our  committee  gives  by  eating 
rotten  potatoes  which  they  dig  out  day  by  day.' 

"Father  John  O'Keene,  of  Dromore  West,  wrote  to 
me  that  '  there  are  four  hundred  families  in  his  parish 
dependent  on  the  relief  committees,  and  one  hundred 
almost  entirely  in  want  of  clothing,  and  the  children  in 
a  state  of  semi-nudity.' 

"  Four  hundred  familiesi  Let  us  look  at  the  mother 
of  just  one  of  these  four  hundred  families. 

''Listen  to  Father  O'Keene: 

"  'On  Sunday  last,  as  I  was  about  going  to  church,  a 
poor  young  woman,  ])renuiturely  aged  by  poverty,  came 
up  and  sjjoke  to  me.  Being  in  a  hurry,  I  said;  I  hare 
no  time  to  speak  to  you,  Mrs.  Calpin.  Are  you  not  on 
the  relief  list?"'  *'  No,  Father,"  she  said,  and  we  are 
starving."  Her  appearance  caused  me  to  stoj^.  She 
had  no  shoes,  and  her  Avretched  clothing  made  her  the 
picture  of  misery.  I  asked  her  why  her  husband  had 
not  come  to  speak  to  me.  She  said:  "  He  has  no  coat, 
nor  has  he  one  for  the  last  two  years,  and  this  being 
Sunday,  he  was  ashamed  to  go  out  without  one!"  '  " 

We  will  not  follow  this  painful  subject  any  longer, 
but  return  to  the  organization  and  workings  of  the 
Land  League. 


THE  lEISH  LAI^D  LEAGUE. 


223 


CHAPTER  XI. 

THE  IRISH  LAKD  LEAGUE. 

Its  Inception  and  Workings — Coercion  by  the  Govern- 
ment—  Boycotting — Arrests  of  Parnell,  Dillon^ 
and  Other  Suspects — The  Ladies^  Land  League — 
Combination  and  Organization — Tlie  Prospect  in 
Ireland, 

The  seed  of  the  Land  Leaf^rne  was  sown  bv  the  harsh 

o  •J 

exactions  of  landlords  during  1877-78-79,  which  were 
finally  made  nnendurable  by  the  failure  of  the  potato 
crop,  when  tenants  were  brought  face  to  face  with 
famine  in  a  large  part  of  Ireland. 

It  is  but  justice  to  Michael  Davit t  to  say  that  he  was 
the  organizer  of  the  Land  movement.  The  Parnell 
Land  Leao-ue  and  other  organizations  existed  in  Kew 
York  before  his  ;irriva^  in  America,  so  that  he  had  good 
material  to  operate  on.  In  a  lecture  delivered  at  Bos- 
ton, in  December,  1878,  Mr.  Davit t  outlined  the  pro- 
gramme of  the  new  agitation,  a  primary  feature  of 
which  was  the  control  of  tlie  whole  Irish  delegation  in 
Parliament,  this  to  be  secured  by  the  same  public  and 
legitimate  agencies  which  are  employed  by  political 
parties  in  England  and  America.  The  representatives 
of  liis  country  in  the  imperial  legislature,  having  thus 
acquired  the  weight  derived  from  unanimity,  were  to 
press  the  national  demand  for  an  immediate  improve- 
ment of  the  land  system  by  such  a  change  as  would 


224 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


prevent  the  peasantrjT'  of  Ireland  from  being  made  its 
victims  in  the  future.  Such  a  change,  he  said,  should 
form  the  preludB  to  the  introduction  of  a  system  of 
small  proprietorships  similar  to  what  now  obtain  in 
some  Continental  states.  He  based  the  demand  for 
the  transformation  of  a  tenant  into  a  landowner  on 
principles  which  had  already  been  laid  down  by  Mr. 
Bright,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  British  government 
to  resume,  after  giving  compensation  to  the  landlords, 
the  land  of  which  Irishmen  had  wron":ful]v  been  de- 
prived,  in  order  to  re-convey  it  to  the  descendants  of 
tlie  liglitful  owners. 

The  following  is  the  official  record  of  the  first  Irish 
Convention: 

The  Rev.  Fatlier  Behan,  C.  C,  proposed  and  Mr. 
Wm.  Dillon,  B.  L.,  seconded:  "  That  an  association  be 
hereby  formed,  to  be  named,  '  The  Irish  JS'ational 
Land  League.'  " 

The  other  resolutions  which  embraced  the  programme 
were — 

*'That  the  objects  of  the  League  are,  first,  to  bring 
about  a  reduction  of  rack-rents:  second,  to  facilitate 
the  obtaining  of  the  ownership  of  the  soil  by  the 
occupant." 

"The  objects  of  the  League  can  be  best  attained  by 
promoting  organization  among  the  tenant  farmers,  by 
defending  those  who  mav  be  threatened  with  eviction 
for  refusing  to  pay  unjust  rents,  by  facilitating  the 
working  of  the  Bright  clauses  of  the  Land  Act  during 
the  winter,  and  by  obtaining  such  reform  in  the  laws 
relatincr  to  land  as  will  enable  everv  tenant  to  become 
the  owner  of  his  holding  by  paying  a  fair  rent  for  a 
number  of  years." 

This  important  clause,  which  embraces  the  principles 
of  the  League  and  tenant  proprietorship,  was  offered 


Thomas  Sexton. 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE. 


226 


by  Mr.  Parnell,  and  seconded  by  the  Eev.  Eugene 
Sheeliy,  the  worthy  successor  of  the  martyred  patriot 
priest,  Father  Nicholas  Sheehy,  who  was  executed 
in  Clonmel,  March  15th,  1766,  in  the  38th  year  of  his  age. 

The  resolution  ''that  Charles  S.  Parnell,  M.  P.,  be 
elected  President  of  this  League"  was  unanimously 
carried.  Michael  Davitt,  A.  J.  Kettle,  and  Thomas 
Brennan  were  appointed  secretaries. 

J.  G.  Biggar,  M.  P.,  W.  H.  O'Sullivan,  M,  P.,  and 
Patrick  Egan  were  appointed  treasurers. 

On  motion,  it  was  resolved  "that  the  President  of 
the  League,  Parnell,  be  requested  to  proceed  to  America, 
.for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  assistance  from  our  exiled 
countrymen  and  other  sympathizers  for  the  object  for 
which  this  appeal  is  issued." 

Mesolded^  That  none  of  the  funds  of  this  League 
shall  be  used  for  the  purchase  of  an}^  landlord's  interest 
in  the  land  or  for  furthering  the  interests  of  any  Parlia- 
mentary candidate." 

The  meeting  was  attended  by  delegates  from  various 
parts  of  Ireland,  including  several  members  of  Parlia- 
ment and  a  number  of  priests. 

From  this  it  will  be  seen  that  the  programme  of  the 
Land  League  was  simple  and  comprehensive.  It  did 
not  embrace  any  wild  generalities  or  experimental 
theories.  It  confined  itself  to  the  following  simi)le 
rules,  naniel}^:  A  reduction  of  excessive  .rents;  the 
protection  of  tenants  evicted  for  not  paying  excessive 
rents;  and  the  establishment  of  tenant  proprietorship. 

The  Land  League,  from  its  inception,  became  formida- 
ble to  the  English  government,  because  its  object  was 
a  legitimate  and  peaceful  one,  and  because  all  classes 
in  Ireland,  embracing  priests  and  people,  readily  united 
on  its  platform,  and  it  soon  found  among  its  warmest 
supporters  and  most  zealous  defenders  such  men  as 
Archbishop Croke  of  Cashel  and  Bishop Nulty  of  Meath. 


226 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


The  objects  for  -svliicli  this  association  was  organized 
were  eminently  moral,  humane,  and  constitutional, 
and  the  methods  to  which  it  was  proposed  to  have 
recourse  were  peaceful  and  legal.    There  was  no  reason, 
therefore,  why  the  Catholic  clergy  sliould  not  take  as 
active  a  part  in  promoting  the  Land  League  as  they 
had  taken  on  behalf  of  the  Home  Rule  party,  which 
was  now  virtually  merged  in  the  new  agitation.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  the  Catholic  Church  contributed  a 
large  number  of  the  names  which  ligure  in  the  official 
record  of  its  first  meeting,  nnd  from  the  outset  of  the 
movement  clergymen  of  all  creeds  spoke  on  the  same 
platform  in  advocacy  of  its  aims  and  approbation  of 
its  orderly  and  honest  methods.    The  thoroughly  un- 
sectarian  and  national  character  of  the  League  was 
strikinglv  attested  bv  the  fact  that  constituencies  known 
to  be  overwhelmingh"  Catholic  sent  Protestant  repre- 
sentatives to  Parliament.    It  is  true  that  the  Arch- 
bishop  of  Dublin,  Dr.  McCabe,   assailed   the  new 
organization,  but  the  late  Archbishop  McHale,  Arch- 
bishop Croke,  and  Bishop  Nulty  expressed  a  warm  ap- 
proval of  it  in  published  letters,  and  within  a  year  after 
its  foundation  a  large  majority  of  the  Catholic  clergy 
openly  promoted  it  or  privately  intimivted  sympathy 
with  its  principles  and  x^urposes.    This  fact  should 
have  great  weight  with  impartial  observers;  for  it  is  pre- 
posterous to  suppose,  in  view  of  the  traditional  attitude 
of  the  Roman  Church  and  the  reiterated  injunctions  of 
Leo  XIIL,  that  a  large  part  of  the  Catholic  liierarchy 
would  have  sanctioned  an  association  which  had  any- 
thing  in  common  with  the  schemes  and  j^rocesses  of  the 
Fenians  and  other  secret  societies  whose  illicit  machi- 
nations have  been  a  reproach  to  Ireland. 

The  League  was  soon  in  operation  throughout 
the  whude  country;  branches  were  organized  in  every 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE. 


227 


city,  town,  and  village,  and  a  powerful  and  centralized 
organization  extended  its  ramilications  on  all  sides. 
The  landlords  were  soon  paralyzed.  Before  they 
raised  the  rents  and  evicted  tenants  at  will.  Though 
their  victims  had  the  sympathy  of  their  neighbors, 
who  were  not  only  powerless,  but  also  afraid  to  help 
them,  there  was  no  organization  to  make  common  cause 
with  them.  They  had  no  redress  except  in  the  wild 
justice  of  revenge,  which  sent  such  men  as  Loids  Lei- 
trim  and  Mountmorris  to  bloody  graves.  Now  there 
was  a  nnited  and  defiant  organization  to  stand  by  them. 
They  were  provided  with  homes  and  food,  and  no  man 
dare  take  the  farms  of  those  evicted  at  the  peril  of  his 
life,  for  an  edict  had  gone  forth — Rent  no  farm  from 
which  a  tenant  who  belongs  to  the  League  has  been 
evicted.-'  In  addition  to  this,  the  tenants  on  estates 
which  were  rack-rented  formed  themselves  into  unions 
not  to  pay  any  rent  until  the  landlord  reduced  it  to 
what  was  fair  and  just.  Here  was  a  new  dilemma  for 
the  landlords.  They  could  not  evict  one  tenant  with, 
out  evicting  all,  and  if  they  did  this  the  lands  would 
be  let  lie  idle  on  their  hands.  Though  many  of  the 
landlords  maintained  a  dogged  independence,  several, 
on  the  principle  that,  "a  half-loaf  was  better  than  no 
bread,"  came  to  terms  and  reduced  the  rent  to  Griff  th's 
valuation. 

In  its  legitimate  attempt  to  exert  pressure  on  the 
land-owning  class,  the  League  found  itself  at  first 
baffled  to  some  extent  by  the  action  of  tenants  who 
were  not  members  of  tlie  association,  i)recisely  as  the 
American  patriots  during  the  Revolulion  found  them- 
selves baffled  by  the  loyalists.  To  such  men  the  Land 
Leaguers  said  just  what  the  Whigs  of  the  revolted 
colonies  said  to  the  Tories,  viz.:  So  long  as  vou  areneii- 
tral  we  shall  treat  you  as  friends  and  neighbors;  but 


228 


IRELAIS^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


if  you  see  fit  to  side  with  landlordism  against  jout  own 
class,  you  must  expect  to  be  subjected  to  social  os- 
tracism. AVe  need  not  say  that  the  ostracizing  process, 
which  received  from  one  of  its  victims  the  name  of 
"boycotting,"  proved  a  powerful  agent  of  restraint  upon 
unpatriotic  men,  and  did  much  to  disincline  the  land- 
lords to  resort  to  eviction,  which,  as  Mr.  Gladstone 
told  Parliament,  was,  in  famine  years  like  1846  and 
1879,  equivalent  to  a  sentence  of  starvation.  In  1846 
no  less  than  300,000  human  beings  were  thrust  out  from 
their  poor  huts  to  perish  in  the  ditcli;  in  1879,  under 
the  concerted  and  resolute  action  of  the  Land  League, 
the  number  of  evictions  was  but  1,348.  It  is  true  that 
in  1880  the  landlords,  aided  by  an  armed  constabulary 
and  great  bodies  of  troops,  were  able  to  increase  the 
number  of  evictions  to  10,437,  but  even  these  dei)lorable 
figures  seem  insignificant  when  compared  with  tlie  total 
of  90,440  persons  who  were  evicted  in  1847,  the  second 
year  of  the  previous  famine. 

Tiiat  the  Land  League  was  justified  in  averting  by 
all  peaceful  and  constitutional  means  eviction  for  rack- 
rents  in  a  time  of  famine,  seems  clear  enough  now  that 
the  extortionate  character  of  Irish  rentals  has  been 
conclusively  demonstrated  by  the  action  of  the  Land 
Courts  created  b}'  the  Britisli  government.  The  average 
reduction  effected  by  these  tribunals  is  not  less  than 
twenty- two  per  cent. 

One  of  the  most  effective  weapons  in  the  hands  of 
the  people  against  those  who  opposed  the  actions  of 
the  Land  Leaguers  was  that  social  ostracism  called 

boj'cotting."  It  simply  amounted  to  this,  that  when 
a  man  became  offensive  to  his  neighbors  ihey  entered 
into  a  combination  not  to  sell  to  him  or  buy  from  him, 
not  to  work  for  him  or  associate  with  him  or  his  family. 
The  first  man  to  whom  this  system  of  ostracizing  was 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE 


229 


applied,  as  if  he  were  a  leper,  was  a  Captain  Boycott, 
County  Mayo,  who  was  agent  for  Lord  Erne.  This 
Boycott  was  a  coarse,  vulgar  tyrant,  and  treated  the 
•  poor  peasants  as  if  they  were  so  many  dogs,  compelling 
them  to  submit  to  galling  insults  and  tyrannical  ex- 
actions. He  evicted  unfortunate  tenants  with  as  little 
remorse  as  if  he  were  exterminating  wolves.  The 
League  devoted  special  attention  to  him.  It  com- 
manded the  tenants  to  refuse  to  pay  him  rack-rents. 
Secondly,  it  instructed  the  men  working  for  him  not  to 
harvest  his  crops  at  the  starvation  wages  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  paying  them,  and  to  exact  from  him  the  same 
as  others  paid  them.  When  they  made  this  demand  he 
only  swore  at  them,  and  denounced  their  assurance  and 
impudence,  and  vowed  that  he  would  not  give  one  penny 
more.  There  was  a  strike.  No  one  would  work  for 
him.  No  one  would  sell  him  anything,  or  trade  with 
him  in  any  way.  He  was  resolved  to  light  it  out.  The 
peasantry  scawled  at  him,  and  no  longer  doffed  their 
hats  to  him.  They  were  becoming  men,  independent 
human  beings,  under  the  teachings  of  the  Land  League. 
Boycott's  crops  were  rotting  in  the  ground.  What 
should  he  do  ?  He  and  his  family  tried  to  save  them, 
but  it  was  an  idle  task.  A  body  of  Orangemen 
volunteered  to  come  all  the  way  from  the  North  to 
save  his  crops.  They  came,  guarded  by  horse,  foot, 
and  artillery.  The  people  were  furious,  and  would 
have  fallen  upon  them  had  not  the  League  kept  them  in 
check.  They  only  ate  up  the  balance  of  Boycott's  crops, 
and  left  him  poorer  and  more  helpless  and  wretched  than 
ever.  The  Captain  vowed  to  evict  all  Lord  Erne's 
tenants,  and  secured  an  escort  of  one  hundred  police- 
men, but  he  could  not  secure  a  single  process-server,  for 
it  would  be  certain  death  to  him.  The  brave  Captain 
at  length  succumbed  to  adverse  circumstances,  and 


230 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  TKESENT. 


left  the  country  in  despair.  He  came  to  America, 
but  returned  again  and  secured  the  toleration  of  his 
neighbors  by  acting  fairly  and  justly  towjirds  them. 

While  this  kind  of  passive  siege  was  going  on,  James  • 
Redpatli,  who  was  writing  up  the  state  of  the  country 
for  TJie  JSew  YorK  Tribune,  visited  the  parish  and  gave 
a  history  of  Boycott's  adventures  with  his  tenants. 
Father  O'Malley  was  the  champion  of  the  poor  tenants 
against  their  oppressors.  Redpath  was  dining  with 
him,  and  while  over  the  frugal  meal  looked  pensive. 
What's  the  matter?"  asked  the  priest. 

"I'm  bothered  about  a  word."  was  the  reply,  **to 
convey  an  idea  of  this  Boycotting  business  to  the  people 
of  Anieric^i." 

'  Ostracism'  will  not  do,"  said  Father  O'Malley,  and 
then,  after  a  moment's  reflection,  he  exclaimed:  "I  have 
it,  Kedpath.    Call  it  'boycotting.'  " 

Boycotting"  it  was  called  and  still  continues  to  be 
called,  for  the  word  has  fairly  become  a  part  of  the  Eng- 
lish language. 

The  approach  of  famine  with  all  its  horrors  threw 
additional  responsibilities  on  the  shoulders  of  the  Land 
League  after  its  organization.  Tlie  potato  crop  had 
failed.  In  1876  its  value  was  over  sixty  millions  of 
dollars.  In  1877  it  fell  to  twenty-five  million  dollars, 
while  in  1879  it  shrank  down  to  fifteen  millions,  which 
might  be  called  a  general  failure.  The  evictions  were 
feaifuUy  on  the  increase,  while  the  necessaries  of  life 
were  on  the  decrease.  In  1876  the  evictions  officially 
reported  in  Ii'eland  were  1,269;  in  1877  they  increased 
to  1,323;  in  1878  they  rose  to  1,749.  There  was  a  con- 
siderable falling  off  in  '79  and  '80,  owing  to  the  united 
and  determined  stand  the  people  took  by  the  advice 
and  under  the  guidance  of  the  Land  League. 

The  advice  to  the  tenants  not  to  pay  rack-rents,  and 


THE  IKISII  LAND  LEAGUE. 


231 


to  provide  against  starvation  for  tlien^selves  and  their 
children  before  they  would  pay  any  rent,  was  but  just 
and  proper.  The  landlords  did  not  thinli  so,  though. 
What  did  they  care  whether  the  people  starved  or  not, 
if  they  got  their  rents  ?  and  notices  to  quit  and  the  crow- 
bar brigade  were  the  order  of  the  day.  The  League 
had  the  fearful  lesson  of  the  famine  years  of  '46,  '47, 
and  '48  before  them,  when  close  on  a  million  of  human 
beings  were  flung  out  of  their  homes  and  died  of  star- 
vation. In  October,  1879,  Davitt  said  to  the  tenants: 
''If  to  save  your  families  from  death,  you  must  keep 
back  the  rent,  keep  it  back;  you  are  bound  before  God 
to  save  them.  You  must  not  ima":ine  that  vou  will  be 
turned  out  on  the  roadside  to  die,  as  your  fathers  were 
in  '46.  Tliere  is  a  spirit  abroad  in  Ireland  to-day  that 
will  not  stand  that  a  second  time  in  a  century."  These 
words  met  with  a  warm  response  from  the  honest  hearts  • 
of  Irish  peasants,  and  brought  terror  to  the  mansions 
of  the  landlords.  They  were  the  writing  on  the  wall,  , 
tne  death-knell  of  land-owning.  The  government  re- 
cognized the  fact  that  they  had  a  powerful  and  dan- 
gerous organization  to  contend  against,  and  instead  of 
bending  their  energies  to  meet  the  demands  of  the 
people,  they  blindly  tried  to  crush  out  the  infant 
Hercules.  They  arrested  Michael  Davitt  and  two  of 
his  associates  in  November,  and  flung  them  into 
prison. 

In  December  Parnell,  accompanied  by  Dillon, 
sailed  for  America,  where  they  arrived  January  2nd, 
1880.  They  traveled  over  the  country,  meeting  with 
a  brilliant  reception  everywhere.  They  spoke  in 
most  of  the  large  cities  of  the  Union.  On  February 
2nd,  Mr.  Parnell  was  received  by  Congress  while 
in  session,  and  delivered  an  address  before  that 
august  body,  setting  forth  the  aims  and  mission  of  the 


232 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Land  League  and  the  miserable  condition  of  Ireland. 
The  same  compliment  was  paid  him  by  the  State  Legis- 
latures ill  all  the  States  he  visited,  and  city  freedoms 
were  showered  upon  him  everywhere.  Some  £70,000 
was  forwarded  to  the  Land  League  in  Dublin  through 
Parnell's  exertions,  of  which  over  £50,000  was  dis- 
tributed in  charity  by  the  League,  when,  after  a  three 
nioiirlis'  tour  through  the  States  and  Canada,  his  mis- 
sion was  cut  short  by  the  dissolution  of  Parliament. 
Parnell  returned  to  Ireland  in  February,  leaving  Dillon 
after  him,  to  prosecute  the  work  he  had  so  successfully 
undertaken. 

Mr.  Dillon,  aided  by  Mrs.  Parnell,  Miss  Fanny  Par- 
nell, and  several  ladies  and  prominent  gentlemen,  es- 
tablished the  League  in  New  York.  A  convention  was 
called  at  Buffalo,  at  which  a  regular  programme  was 
adopted  for  the  guidance  of  the  League  in  America. 
The  officers  chosen  at  this  National  Convention  were: 
President,  Patrick  A.  Collins,  of  Boston;  Vice-Presi- 
dent, Rev.  Patrick  Cronin,  Buffalo;  Secretary,  Thomas 
Flatley,  Boston;  and  Treasurer,  Rev.  Lawrence  Walsh, 
of  Waterbury,  Connecticut. 

After  this  convention,  clubs  and  meetings  were  or- 
ganized throughout  America,  and  large  sums  of  money 
were  sent  to  Ireland  to  relieve  the  distress  there,  as 
well  as  for  the  use  of  the  Land  League.  Michael 
Davitt,  who  had  been  released,  also  visited  America  in 
aid  of  the  cause. 

The  objects  of  the  League  received  the  all  but  uni- 
versal approbation  of  the  clergy  of  the  Catholic  Church 
in  the  United  States,  and  the  public  meetings  held 
under  the  auspices  of  the  League  to  raise  money  for 
those  in  danger  of  starving  were  addressed  by  the  most 
eminent  of  the  hierarch}^,  while  others  appealed  in 
pastoral  letters  directly  to  their  clergy  and  people,  ex- 


THE  IRISH  LAXD  LEAGUE. 


238 


plaining  clearly  and  eloquently  the  causes  of  the  famine. 

Said  Bishop  Hennessy  of  Dubuque  :  **lf  the  govern- 
ment had  sincere  compassion  on  a  suffering  people  and 
an  honest  desire  to  save  them  from  the  fate  which  was 
impending,  would  it  in  such  an  emergency,  under  pre- 
text of  law  or  any  other  pretext,  become  a  party  to 
landlord  rapacity  ?  Would  it  send  its  constabulary  and 
military  to  distrain  and  eject,  to  tear  down  cabins  and 
throw  shivering  children,  their  mothers  and  grand- 
mothers, out  on  tha  highways  in  the  depth  of  winter? 
Would  it  seize  and  carry  off  by  force  the  crops  and 
other  chattels  to  which,  through  sheer  necessity,  with- 
out a  thought  of  dishonesty,  the  poor  farmer  clung  that 
he  might  have  wherewith  to  keep  the  life  in  his  little 
ones?    Would  it  wrench  the  crust  out  of  the  hand  of 
hunger,  tliat  pampered  tyranny  might  have  the  last 
penny  of  the  rent?    Conduct  such  as  this  betrays  no 
pity.    The  aim  of  the  British  government  is  not  to  re- 
move distress  in  Ireland,  but  rather  to  produce,  ag- 
gravate, and  take  advantage  of  it.    To  exterminate  those 
whom  it  could  not  pervert  was  its  manifest  and  avowed 
policy  on  the  failure  of  the  Reformation.    It  is  still  the 
same,  though  not  so  openly.    It  is  easy  to  see  how  it  is 
going  to  work  now.    Famine  will  take  some;  its  in- 
variable attendant,  pestilence,  or  sickness  of  somekind^ 
will  carrv  off  still  more;  and  emiirration  will  follow. 
The  three  will  scour  the  land  and  scourge  it  and 
multiply  sheep-walks.    Did  not  the  government  foresee 
this?    Others  did  who  are  not  quite  so  keen-sighted. 
If  not  intended,  why  not  prevented  ?    One  per  cent, 
of  what  it  cost  to  rob  and  murder  Afghans  and  Zulus 
in  unjust  wars,  as  worthless  as  they  were  wicked  in  the 
judgment  even  of  Englishmen,  soldiers  and  civilians, 
would  have  greatly  improved  Ireland  and  preserved  her 
people.    But  to  do  this  was  not  in  the  programme. 
The  friends  of  Ireland,  the  trusted  leaders  of  her  j)eople, 


234 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PEESENT. 


will  strive  against  emigration  by  argiimentj  and  prom- 
ises, and  jjersonal  inliuence.  I  fear  tliey  will  not  suc- 
ceed to  the  extent  of  their  wishes.  Multitudes,  espe- 
cially of  the  young,  the  vigorous,  the  ambitious,  will 
not  be  induced,  cannot  be  persuaded,  to  remain  in  a 
country  where  famine  is  periodical  and  misery  per- 
petual, and  this  not  by  the  accidents  of  fortune,  but  by 
the  design  of  their  rulers.'' 

Lord  Beaconsfield  decided  upon  a  dissolution  of 
Parliament  in  the  spring  of  1880,  believing  that  the 
country  would  sustain  him  in  his  Irish  policy.  The 
result  was  the  defeat  of  the  Tory  party  and  the  i-estora- 
tion  to  power  of  the  Liberals  under  Premier  Gladstone. 
The  Irish  party,  instead  of  being  weakened  by  the 
election,  was  considerably  strengthened.    Parnell  was 
elected  by  three  constituencies,  and  his  friend  John 
Dillon  was  elected  for  Tipperary.    Ireland  returned  a 
large  number  of  advanced  Home  R-ulers  and  Land 
Lea":uers  and  returned  them  directl  v  under  the  influence 
of  Parnell.     Some  of  the  most  powerful,  wealthy, 
and  high-placed  of  Irish  landlords  were  defeated  in 
their  own  counties  by  young  candidates  previously  un- 
known to  the  public  life,  who  came  forward  simply  on 
the  recommendation  of  Parnell.    Gladstone  and  his 
Liberal  colleagues  knew  well  how  much  they  owed  to 
the  efforts  of  Irishmen.    He  said  to  an  Irish  member 
just  before  the  dissolution  that  all  would  depend  upon 
the  action  of  Ireland  and  of  Irishmen  in  English  con- 
stituencies.   He  franklv  said  tliat  if  the  Irish  members 
did  not  go  with  him,  if  Ireland  did  not  return  represent- 
atives willing  to  go  with  him,  he  could  not  possibly  have 
a  maioritv  sufficient  to  enable  him  to  carrv  out  a  really 
liberal  policy.    There  was  even  an  idea  among  some  in- 
fluential colleagues  of  Gladstone's'that  in  the  event  of 
their  coming  into  power  an  effort  ought  to  be  made  to  get 
one. or  two  of  the  Home  Rule  members  to  join  the  new 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE.  235 

Liberal  administration.  At  all  events  it  is  certain  that 
the  Liberals  owed  their  success  in  great  part  to  Ireland 
and  to  Irishmen,  that  Gladstone  and  his  colleagues 
were  aware  of  this  fact,  and  tluit  they  came  into  office 
therefore  morally  and  politically  pledged  to  make 
every  possible  effort  to  satisfy  the  demands  and  remove 
the  grievances  of  Ireland. 

The  new  Parliament  assembled  at  the  close  of  April, 
1880.  Before  the  meeting  of  the  Parliament,  however, 
the  Irish  members  had  held  a  convention  of  their  own 
in  Dublin.  Parnell,  wlio  had  been  visiting  America, 
had  just  returned  to  Europe,  and  was  present  at  the 
convention.  The  party  in  close  alliance  with  him 
had  become  so  much  strengthened  by  the  results  of  the 
elections  as  to  be  manifestly  the  most  powerful  section 
of  the  Irish  representatives.  The  majority  of  Irish 
members  at  the  convention  were  alreadv  resolved  that 
Shaw  should  not  continue  to  be  leader  of  the  Parlia- 
mentary party.  If  he  was  not  to  remain  leader,  it 
seemed  clear  to  some  of  them  that  only  one  man  in 
the  party  could  possibly  succeed  him.  Parnell  him- 
self thought  otherwise,  and  suggested  another  name, 
but  his  colleagues  pressed  and,  indeed,  insisted  that  if 
any  change  was  to  be  made,  he  must  himself  take  the 
leadership.  The  reason  for  this  is  obvious.  He  had 
come  to  be  unq^uestionably  the  leader  of  the  Irish 
people.  By  his  influence  and  the  magic  of  his  name, 
the  Irish  constituencies  had  elected  a  large  number  of 
new  and  untried  men  to  Parliament  to  serve  on  the  lines 
he  had  laid  down.  Despite  considerable  opposition  on 
the  part  of  Parnell,  he  was  elected  as  the  leader  of 
the  Irish  Parliamentary  party. 

The  year  1880  was  an  exciting  one  in  Ireland.  Famine 
raged  throughout  the  country,  while  the  Land  League, 
generously  aided  from  various  sources,  tried  to  stay  the 
terrible  scourge.    The  people  became  desx^erate.  They 


236 


IRELAI^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


formed  into  kind  of  trades-union  societies,  and  defied 
alike  landlord  and  government  authority.  Meetings 
were  hekl  throughout  the  country,  which  were  addressed 
by  Parnell  or  some  of  his  associates,  as  well  as  by 
the  local  clergy.  The  government,  as  usual,  tried  to  put 
down  the  agitation  by  coercion.  They  resolved  to 
prosecute  the  leaders,  Gladstone  ignoring  the  fact  that 
to  these  same  men  he  owed  his  position  as  Premier. 
Parnell,  Dillon,  Sexton,  and  several  otlier  members  of 
Parliament  were  included  in  this  prosecution.  The 
state  trials  came  on  in  Ireland  at  the  close  of  the  rear. 
The  jury  disagreed  and  the  traversers  were  acquitted. 
It  is  stated  that  there  was  only  one  juror  for  conviction. 

Parliament  met  in  1881  a  month  before  its  usual  time. 
It  opened  on  the  6th  of  January.  It  was  well  known 
that  Gladstone  was  about  to  bring  in  a  Land  Bill 
for  Ireland  and  also  a  Coercion  Bill.  The  Land  League 
had  been  ridding  Ireland  of  conspiracy  by  winning  over 
.  the  people  to  open  agitation,  and  as  a  matter  of  course 
outrage  had  been  shovvingsigns  of  diminution.  But  a  new 
Coercion  Bill,  it  was  felt,  would  be  certain  to  put  back 
the  hand  of  the  clock,  to  restore  the  reign  of  conspiracy. 
The  strongest  representations  were  made  to  Glad- 
stone on  the  subject.  Great  pressure  was  brought  to 
bear  upon  him.  It  was  in  vain.  He  yielded  to  the  ad- 
vice of  Forster,  and  resolved  to  put  coercion  before 
remedy.  The  Irish  members  were  resolved,  if  they 
could  not  prevent  its  passing  or  modify  its  character, 
at  least  to  keep  it  from  being  passed  as  long  as  they 
could.  This  would  have  been  their  duty  in  the  case  of 
any  Coercion  Bill,  at  least  as  they  construed  the  duty  of 
an  Irishman  and  an  Irish  member  of  Parliament  to  his 
countr\\  But  this  particular  Coercion  Bill  was  objec- 
tionable almost  beyond  every  other  which  had  been 
introduced.  It  gave  the  government,  that  is  to  say,  the 
Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland,  the  absolute,  unlimited 


THE  lEISn  LATs^D  LEAGUE. 


237 


power  of  arresting  anybody  lie  pleased  witlionfc  making, 
or  intending  to  make,  any  charge  against  him,  and  to 
lock  him  up  in  prison  for  an  indefinite  time  without 
giving  him  any  explanation  as  to  the  reason  which  the 
government  had  for  his  arresi.  It  was  enough  that  a 
man  should  be  "reasonably  suspected"  by  any  magis- 
trate or  policeman,  or  anybody,  in  order  to  warrant  the 
Chief  Secretary  in  having  him  sent  to  prison.  The 
phrase,  ''reasonably  suspected,"  became  famous.  It 
was  not,  by  the  way,  Forster's  own  invention.  It 
is  to  be  found  in  Lyttelton's  "History  of  Henry  II.," 
published  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago.  Speaking 
of  the  Earl  of  Chester,  Lyttelton  says:  "It  does  not 
appear  that  he  had  done  any  act  to  make  him  reasonably 
suspected  of  treason,  and  if  an  unwarranted  suspicion 
could  justify  such  a  proceeding,  a  tyrant  would  always 
be  justified,  for  he  may  always  suspect  when  he  desires 
to  oppress." 

Then  followed  the  great  scenes  of  obstruction  which 
threw  the  House  of  Parliament  into  such  a  fever  of  ex- 
citement, and  wiiicli  were  only  brought  to  a  close  by  rlie 
coup  cUetat  of  the  2d  of  February,  when  the  Speaker 
intervened  and  declared  that  the  debate  must  go  no 
further.  Xext  day  the  announcement  of  the  arrest  of 
Michael  Davit t,  an  announcement  which  was  received 
with  wild  and  even  savage  cheers  of  exultation  by 
English  Liberal  members,  led  to  another  storm v  scene, 
and  finally  to  the  expulsion  for  that  sitting  of  thirty- 
six  Irish  members. 

The  Coercion  Bill  introduced  by  Forster  was  pro- 
ductive of  nothing  but  mischief.  This  fact  is  now 
acknowledged  by  every  one  who  helped  him  to  in- 
troduce it.  It  has  justified  to  the  full  all  the  pre- 
dictions which  the  Irish  members  uttered  whilst  it  was 
still  on  its  passage  through  the  House.  In  ever}'  town 
and  village  t-hr-oughout  Ireland  the  local  leaders  of  the 


238 


IRELAlfD,  PAST  AJ^D  PRESENT. 


Land  Lengne,  priests  and  others,  were  thrown  into 
prison,  and  the  result  was  that  Kibbonmen  and  conspir- 
ators got  the  country  for  awhile  into  their  hands  ngain. 

Meanwhile  the  Land  Bill  was  intioduced,  and  in  its 
first  shape  found  to  be  a  measure  with  very  little 
promise  in  it.  By  the  elforts  of  the  Irish  members, 
with  the  assistance  of  a  very  few  stanch  English  allies, 
the  bill  was  gradually  strengthened  in  its  passing 
through  the. House.  But  Parnell  predicted  that  it 
w^ould  prove  utterly  inadequate  for  the  purpose  Glad- 
stone had  in  view,  that  it  would  lead  to  an  immense 
amount  of  litigation,  and  that  the  Land  Courts 
formed  for  the  purpose  of  fixing  a  fair  rentw^ould  soon 
find  themselves  clogged  and  choked  with  a  mass  of 
business,  and  all  this  came  true.  When  the  session 
came  to  an  end  and  autumn  was  drawing  on,  Glad- 
stone suddenly  made  up  his  mind  to  close  with  the 
Land  League  and  overthrow  it  by  main  force.  Par- 
nell, Dillon,  Sexton,  and  O' Kelly  were  arrested  and  flung 
into  prison.  The  Land  League  was  proclaimed  illegal 
and  sux)pressed.  Some  demonstrations  in  Dublin  were 
crushed  b}"  the  police  with  reckless  and  savage  violence, 
and  order  reigned  in  Warsaw.  The  measures  taken 
proved  an  absolute  failure.  The  country  did  not  be- 
come tranquil  after  the  arrest  of  the  members  (;f  Parlia- 
ment, but  on  the  contrary  it  became  much  more  dis- 
turbed than  before.  Outrages  did  not  become  fewer, 
but  multipled  with  fearful  rapidity.  Before  the  winter 
had  wholly  passed  away  everybody  knew,  in  Parliament 
and  out  of  it,  that  the  Coercion  Bill  w^as  admitted  to  be 
a  failure  by  the  government  themselves,  and  that  the 
Land  Bill  had  been  to  a  great  extent  a  failure  also,  and 
that  Gladstone  was  only  waiting  for  the  earliest  op- 
portunity of  endeavoring  to  get  the  assistance  of  Par- 
nell himself  for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  order  in 
Ireland. 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE, 


239 


[n  a  series  of  clever  articles  written  on  Coercion  in 
Ireland,  Home  Rule,  and  kindred  subjects,  by  the  Hon. 
Justin  McCarthy,  M.  P.,  he  gives  the  following  state- 
ment of  Ireland  and  her  prospects: 

"Irish  obstruction  was  deliberately  adopted  for  the 
purpose  of  compelling  the  English  majority  to  see  that 
the  grievances  of  Ireland  must  be  dealt  with  once  for 
all.  In  the  House  of  Commons  the  majority  is  so 
overwhelmingly  against  Ireland  that,  so  far  as  mere 
numbers  and  divisions  go,  Ireland  might  as  well  have 
no  representation  whatever  in  Parliament.  Then  -the 
House  of  Commons  itself  is  domineered  over  by  land- 
lords and  by  capitalists.  The  peers  are  not  only  mas- 
ters in  their  own  House  of  Lords,  but  they  go  very 
near  to  being  masters  in  our  House  of  Conimons.  A 
great  number  of  the  representatives  of  the  people  on 
both  sides  of  the  House  of  Commons  are  the  elder  and 
younger  sons,  the  brothers,  the  nei)hews,  and  the 
cousins  of  peers.  The  army  and  navy  send  many  mem- 
bers to  the  House  of  Commons.  On  the  Torv  side  the 
great  majority  of  the  members  are  landlords.  On  the 
Liberal  side  those  who  are  not  landlords  are  for  the 
most  part  capitalists. 

*'In  such  a  House  what  chance  would  Irish  claims 
have  of  being  heard  if  Irish  members  left  them  to  find 
their  way  to  the  ears  and  the  understandings  of  mem- 
bers by  the  ordinary  channels?  We  might  have  our 
debate  on  Home  Pule  and  our  debate  on  the  land 
question  every  session.  The  majority  of  the  House 
would  never  listen  to  the  debate,  nor  take  the  smallest 
interest  in  finding  out  anything  about  it.  It  would  be 
regarded  as  a  pure  formality.  We  should  make  our 
speeches  to  each  other — preaching  lo  the  converted — 
and  when  the  speeches  were  done  the  division-bell 
would  ring,  and  the  majority  would  come  rushing  and 
tumbling  in  from  the  dining-rooms  and  the  smoking- 


240 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


rooms  and  the  terrace  and  the  library,  and  would  vote 
against  us,  and  out-vote  us. 

We  had  had  enough  of  this  sort  of  thing,  and  had  lost 
all  faith  in  it.  We  have  now  forced  tlie  claims  of  Ire- 
land so  directly  on  the  attention  of  the  House  of  Com- 
mons that  it  would  be  absolutely  impossible  to  leave 
them  out  of  sight.  We  have  shown  that  if  we  cannot 
directly  compel  the  government  and  the  Parliament  to 
deal  fairly  with  the  claims  of  Ireland,  we  can  at  least 
prevent  them  from  accomplishing  any  other  business. 
Gladstone  and  liis  colleagues  are  this  year  trying 
to  remodel  the  Parliamentary  forms  of  procedure  in 
order  to  be  able  to  prevent  us  from  interfering  with 
the  smooth  progress  of  the  ordinar\^  business  of  Par- 
liament. Tliey  have  not  yet  succeeded  in  accomplish- 
ing the  change,  and,  indeed,  it  is  quite  evident  that 
nothing  more  can  be  done  in  the  matter  this  session. 
But  no  change  that  human  ingenuity  can  devise  could 
prevent  a  resolute  minority  of  men  from  effecting  what 
is  called  an  obstruction  of  business  in  an  assembly  like 
the  House  of  Commons,  so  long  as  any  right  of  speech 
is  allowed  there  to  the  minority  at  all.  It  would  be 
wearisome  and  unnecessary  to  go  into  a  lengthened 
explanation  of  this  to  American  readers,  but  they  may 
lake  it  on  mv  autlioritv  that  this  is  so,  and  that  there 
is  only  one  way  of  dealing  with  Irish  obstruction  in 
Parliament,  nnd  that  is  to  show  an  inclination  to  listen 
to  the  demands  made  on  behalf  of  Ireland,  and  to  set 
about  redressing  Irish  grievances. 

"Now,  I  fully  believe  that  obstruction  has  already 
achieved  this  object.  Its  historical  justification  will 
be  found  in  its  results.  I  believe  the  land  question 
will  be  settled  on  the  basis  laid  down  by  the  Land 
League.  The  Land  League,  despite  all  the  tremen- 
dous outcry  made  against  it,  only  set  forth  as  its 
journey's  end  and  very  sea-mark  of  its  utmost  sail, 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE 


241 


the  transier  of  the  soil  of  Ireland  from  its  landlord 
possessors  into  the  hands  of  peasant  owners  and  culti- 
vators  by  the  fair  process  of  state  intervention  and 
purchase.  Kussia,  the  poorest  country  in  Europe  for 
her  size  and  responsibilities,  and  at  a  time  when  she 
was  still  shattered  and  drained  by  the  cost  of  the 
Crimean  war,  paid  one  hundred  millions  of  pounds 
sterling  to  secure  their  land  to  her  emancipated  serfs. 
We  ask  no  such  sacrifice,  nor  anything  remotely  ap- 
proaching to  it,  from  England,  a  country  incomparably 
richer  than  Russia.  We  ask  rather  the  help  of  her 
state  security,  her  credit,  her  guarantee,  for  a  time, 
than  any  sacrifice;  at  all  events,  than  any  considerable 
sacrifice  of  her  money.  I  fully  believe  that  this  will  be 
accomplisJied  in  the  end,  that  the  state  will,  and  before 
long,  go  so  far  as  to  agree  to  buy  out  any  landlord  who 
is  at  present  willing  to  sell,  and  that  thus  the  programme 
of  the  Land  League  Avill  come  into  gradual  develop- 
ment and  accomplishment. 

"Home  rule,  I  take  it,  is  not  far  off.  Everywhere  in 
English  society  we  find  growing  up  the  conviction  that 
a  Parliament  in  Westminster  cannot  manage  the  affairs 
of  the  people  of  Ireland,  and,  indeed,  that  the  present 
centralized  system  of  doing  business  in  AYestminster, 
of  managing  there  all  the  local  affairs  of  England,  Ire- 
land, Scotland,  and  Wales,  is  of  necessity  a  fciilure.  Go 
where  you  will  now  in  London  and  in  England,  you 
find  the  mind  of  English  people  awake  to  the  impor- 
tance of  this  question  of  home  rule,  and  willing  to 
admit  that  there  is  much  to  be  said  for  it.  The  Jane 
number  of  Tlie  Nineteenth  Century,  just  published, 
contains  an  article  in  support  of  liome  rule  by  tlie 
Marquis  of  Blandford,  eldest  son  of  tlie  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough, lately  Lord-Lieutenant  of  Ireland — that  Duke 
of  Marlborough  to  whom  Lord  Beaconsfield  addressed 
the  manifesto  which,  as  I  showed  in  a  former  letter, 


242 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


had  so  much  to  do  with  the  overthrow  of  the  Tory 
government.  You  will,  perhaps,  have  heard  of  the 
article  and  seen  it  before  vou  receive  this  letter,  and  I 
shall  only  say  that  it  is  remarkable  in  itself  as  well  as 
in  the  source  from  w^hich  it  comes,  and  that  it  is  as 
earnest  a  plea  for  some  form  of  home  rule  as  if  it  were 
written  bv  an  Irish  member  of  Pai-liament. 

''Two  members  of  the  present  government  at  least — 
Chamberlain  and  Sir  Charles  DiJke — are  in  favor  of 
home  rule.    Sir  Charles  Dilke  is  more  strongly  an 
advocate  of  home  rule  than  Chamberlain,  who  is  for 
trying  to  the  last  the  policy  of  governing  Ireland 
according  to  Irish  ideas,  and  thus  endeavoring  to 
reconcile  Ireland  to  its  close  connection  with  the  cen- 
tral Parliament.    Should  this  i^lan  fail  to  succeed,  he 
would  then  be  in  favor  of  recognizing  the  claim  of 
Ireland  to  self-government.  Sir  Charles  Dilke,  however, 
goes  a  step  further,  and  frankly  acknowledges  that  he  is 
on  pri:iciple  an  advocate  of  home  rule  for  Ireland.  The 
House  of  Commons  is  beginning  to  find  out  every  day 
that  it  cannot  cret  throu":h  the  mass  of  work  which  the 
present  system  forces  on  it.    We  hear  it  continually 
asked,  wliv  Irish  members  cannot  be  content  with  a 
system  of  Parliamentary  government  which  is  found 
satisfactory  by  Scotch  members.    The  answer  io  very 
easy.    Scorland  L*as,  in  fact,  her  system  of  home  rule 
already.    She  governs  herself,  although  slie  does  it  in 
Westminister  Palace,  and  not  in  the  f/ld  Parliament 
House  in  Edinburgh.    The  Lord-Advocate  of  Scotland 
has  a  part  in  the  administration  of  Scotland  some- 
tliin^r  like  that  of  the  Irish  Chief  Secretary  in  the 
government  of  Ireland.    But  when  the  Lord-Advocate, 
of  Scotland  is  about  to  bring  in  any  measure  con- 
cerning: that  countrv.  he  convenes  the  Scottish  members 
into  a  council  of  their  own.    He  submits  the  mea- 
sure to  them,  consults  them  on  every  principle  and 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE.  243 

every  clause  of  it.  All  their  opinions  are  taken  and 
given,  and  thus,  by  this  little  parliament  within  a, 
Parliament,  the  measure  is  shaped  into  full  accord 
with  Scottish  ideas.  When  it  comes  before  the  House 
of  Commons  it  is  explained  and  discussed  mainly 
or  altogether  by  Scottish  members.  No  English  or 
Irish  member  thinks  of  interfering.  That  is  the  manner 
in  which  Scotland  is  governed,  and  let  me  say,  in 
justice  to  the  Scotch  members,  that  it  would  be  impos- 
sible to  get  them  to  assent  to  such  a  system  as  that 
which  Ireland  is  forced  to  endure.  How  is  Ireland  dealt 
with  ?  Every  measure  that  concerns  her  is  arranged  by 
the  government  at  the  instance  of  the  Lord-Lieutenant  or 
the  Chief  Secretary,  without  the  slightest  reference  to 
the  opinions  of  the  men  who  represent  the  great  bulk 
of  the  Irish  people. 

*'This  system  was  carried  to  absolute  perfection  in 
Forster's  time.  Forster  acted  with  as  sublime  a  dis- 
regard of  the. opinions  of  Irish  members  as  a  Turkish 
pasha  might  show  for  the  feelings  of  the  inhabitants 
of  some  far-distant  province  which  he  was  governing  at 
his  ease  from  Constantinople.  I  do  not  merely  point 
to  the  fact  that  Forster  never  consulted  any  of  the 
members  who  act  with  Parnell.  How  anv  man  in 
his  senses  could  have  supposed  that  he  could  govern 
Ireland  without  taking  some  account  of  the  existence  of 
these  men  and  the  constituencies  they  represent,  it 
passes  my  wit  to  conjecture.  But  I  am  not  dwelling 
on  that  fact  alone.  Forster  never  condescended  to 
consult  with  regard  to  his  measures  of  coercion  even 
those  Irish  members  who  remained  devoted  to  the 
government  of  Gladstone.  He  never  consulted  Shaw 
on  the  subject.  He  never  asked  for  one  word  of  advice 
or  suggestion  from  O'Connor  Power,  one  of  the 
most  eloquent  of  all  the  Jrish  members,  and  who,  for 
a  long  time  standing  in  the  very  front  rank  of  their 


244 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


opposition  to  English  systems  of  administration,  lias 
gradually,  out  of  regard  for  Gladstone  and  belief  in 
him,  passed  away  altogether  from  cooperation  witli 
Parnell  and  his  colleagues.  More  than  that,  the  Chief 
Secretary  never  condescended  to  consult  Charles  Kus- 
sell,  who  is  not  a  Home- Ruler,  although  he  repre- 
sents an  Irish  borough,  and  is  a  most  loyal  follower 
of  Gladstone,  is  an  Irishman  by  birth  and  bringing- 
up,  who  thoroughly  understands  Ireland,  and  who  is 
moreover  the  foremost  man  at  the  English  bar.  Now, 
I  say  that  when  so  stolid  and  contemptuous  a  disregard 
is  shown  for  the  national  representation  of  a  people, 
and  when  such  conduct  could  be  tolerated  in  Parlia- 
ment, it  is  perfectly  clear  that  Ireland  ought  not  to  be 
left  dependent  on  Parliamentary  government  in  West- 
minister. 

"Take  again  the  policy  which  led  to  the  arrest  of 
Parnell  and  Sexton,  and  the  re-arrest  of  Billon  last 
autumn.  Up  to  this  day  no  Irish  member  knows, 
perha])S  no  Irisli  member  ever  will  know,  what  was 
the  reason  which  dictated  that  extraordinary  step. 
Some  persons  conjecture  that  Forster  must  have 
fancied  that  he  had  got  hold  of  information  which,  in 
some  more  or  less  direct  away,  connected  these  Irish 
nienibers  of  Parliament  with  some  Fenian  or  other  con- 
spiracj^  Of  course,  I  am  perfectly  satisfied  myself 
that  no  such  connection  ever  did  exist,  and  that  there- 
fore there  could  be  no  evidence  of  its  existence.  But 
ic  is  possible  that  Forster  may  have  fancied  he  had 
evidence  on  which  reasonable  suspicion  could  be 
founded.  If  that  were  not  so,  then  I  am  utterly  at  a 
loss  even  to  guess  at  the  reasons  which  influenced 
Gladstone  and  Forster  in  that  extraordinary  and 
unlucky  coup  d'etat.  .  Dillon,  it  will  be  remembered, 
liad  been  arrested  early  in  the  year,  not  long  after 
Davitt's  arrest.    He  was  only  kept  in  prison  for  a  feW" 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE.  245 

montlis,  and  was  released  toward  the  end  of  the  sessioii^ 
on  the  ground  that  his  health,  always  very  feeble,  was 
becoming  too  weak  to  allow  of  his  continued  incarcera- 
tion. After  the  session,  a  very  few  days  before  I  left 
England  for  the  East,  Dillon  dined  with  nie  in 
London.  He  was  then  convinced,  as  I  was,  that  the 
Coercion  Act  would  not  be  used  for  the  purpose  of 
making  any  further  arrests.  He  said  to  me  that  he  was 
sure  government  only  wanted  to  have  a  quiet  autumn 
and  winter,  and  a  fair  chance  for  the  working  of  the 
Land  Act  in  the  law  courts.  Parnell,  he  remarked 
to  me,  was  quite  willing  that  the  act  should  have  every 
chance,  and  had  arranged  that  a  certain  number  of  test 
cases  were  to  be  prepared  by  which  the  Irish  tenant- 
farmer  might  easily  get  to  know  whether  the  act  w^ould 
really  become  a  benefit  to  him  or  not.  Dillon  as- 
sumed that  the  government  would  be  only  too  glad  to 
have  the  Land  Act  tested  in  this  way,  and  to  have  the 
country  kept  in  tranquillity,  and  that  therefore  they 
would  make  no  more  arrests.  So  convinced  was  he  of 
this  that  he  told  me  he  had  strongly  advised  a  very 
prominent  member  of  the  Land  League  then  living  in 
Paris  to  return  to  his  home  in  Dublin.  ^He  will  be 
perfectly  safe  over  there,'  Dillon  said;  'we  shan't 
hear  of  any  more  arrests  under  the  Coercion  Act.' 

''I  left  England  in  tlie  full  conlidence  that  Ireland 
would  have  a  quiet  winter,  and  that  the  government 
had  made  up  their  minds  to  let  tlie  policy  of  coercion 
drop.  Suddenly  the  attention  of  the  world  was  aroused 
by  the  arrest  of  Parnell,  the  re-arrest  of  Dillon,  the  in- 
carceration of  Sexton  and  0' Kelly.  No  Irish  member, 
even  among  those  who  have  always  remained  devoted, 
I  might  say  servilely  devoted,  to  the  government,  knows 
to  this  hour  the  cause  of  that  extraordinary  and  un- 
fortunate stroke  of  polic}^  Nothing  that  has  happened 
since  has  materially  altered  the  condition  of  thingn 


246 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


that  prevailed  early  last  October,  and  yet  a  month 
ago  the  government  were  only  too  glad  to  open  the 
I)rison  doors  again  and  to  ask  for  the  cooperation  of 
Parnell  in  restoj'ing  tranquillity  to  Ireland. 

''The  evil  of  the  centralized  system  is  working  its 
own  care.  Ireland  will  have  to  be  governed  henceforth 
according  to  Irish  ideas.  That  phrase  is  generally 
ascribed  to  Gladstone,  but  it  was  taken  by  him  from 
the  greatest  of  all  the  Whig  party  at  a  time  when  the 
Whig  party  was  great,  from  that  statesman  'on  whose 
burning  tongue,'  as  Moore  sings,  '  truth,  peace,  and 
freedom  hung.'  I  mean,  oi  course.  Fox.  Ireland  will 
have  to  be  governed  by  Irish  ideas,  and  when  it  comes 
to  this,  the  English  people  will  very  soon  see  that  it 
is  more  convenient  for  England  and  for  Ireland  that  the 
latter  coiintry  should  govern  herself  in  a  Parliament 
of  her  own. 

"I  do  not  wish  to  say  anything  harsh  of  Forster. 
I  was  during  many  years  in  political  association  with 
him  as  a  supporter  and  a  member  of  the  English 
Radical  party.  Our  opinions  went  side  b}^  side  on 
many  great  public  questions  at  the  time.  For  example, 
of  your  civil  war,  and  during  the  prolonged  struggles 
for  reform  in  1866  and  1867.  I  had  evei  y  hope  that  he 
would  have  made  a  successful  administrator.  ]  would 
have  rejoiced  in  his  success,  were  it  for  nothing  else 
than  because  of  the  noble,  generous,  and  appreciative 
.  spirit  which  his  bi"other-in-law,  Matthew  Arnold, 
has  always  shown  toward  my  country.  But  Forster s 
peculiarities  of  temper  and  of  intellect  evidently 
rendered  him  entirely  unfit  for  the  task  he  had 
undertaken.  Ireland  soon  grew^  disappointed  with  him, 
disappointed  in  proportion  to  the  warmth  of  her  pre- 
vious expectations,  and  Forster  appeared  to  grow 
angry  with  Ireland  because  of  her  disappointment,  and 
because  of  the  manner  in  which  it  found  expression. 


THE  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUE. 


247 


Som.ething  like  an  antipathy  seemed  to  set  in  between 
the  late  Chief  Secretary  and  the  people  lie  was  sent  to 
govern.  He  did  not  go  about  among  them.  He  liardly 
ever  qtiiitted  Dublin,  only  once  or  twice,  I  believe,  going 
far  into  the  country,  and  in  Dublin  he  went  about  but 
little.  He  relied  altogether  on  the  information  given 
him  by  the  permanent  staff  in  Dublin  Castle,  who  were 
about  as  well  able  to  interpret  the  real  feelings  of 
the  people  as  an  Austrian  commander  in  a  Venetian 
garrison  of  old  to  interpret  the  sentiments  of  the 
Venetians  to  some  newly-arrived  governor  from  Vienna. 

When  Mr.  Porster  had  once  gone  into  coercion  he 
seemed  driven  by  a  kind  of  desperation  to  go  deeper 
and  deeper.  He  could  think  of  no  cure  for  the  evils 
caused  by  coercion  except  more  coercion.  But  I 
certainly  acquit  him  of  any  purpose  that  was  not 
honest  in  his  dealings  with  Ireland.  I  am  sure  he 
meant  w^ell  in  tjie  beginning,  and  entered  upon  his  task 
with  a  sincere  desire  to  become  a  benefactor  to  the 
country.  The  better  his  purpose,  the  more  evident  it 
becomes  that  the  task  he  had  undertaken  was  hopeless. 
You  cannot  govern  Ireland  without  taking  account  of 
the  Irish  representatives  and  the  Irish  people.  That 
is  the  lesson  of  Forster's  administration,  as  it  is  the 
lesson  of  many  administrations  before,  and  niny  be 
of  others  yet  to  come  When  the  English  people 
become  throughly  alive  to  this  fact— and  they  are 
waking  up  to  it  already— they  will  soon  see  that  there 
can  be  only  one  solution  of  the  wdiole  problem,  and 
that  is,  that  Ireland  shall  have  just  that  measure  of  in- 
dependent domestic  government  which  is  possessed  by 
every  State  in  the  American  Union.'' 


248  . 


IEELA]N'D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

MICHAEL  DAVITT's  VIEWS. 

Progress  of  the  Land  League  Movement  in  America — 
The  Biigalo  and  Washington  Conventions— The  . 
Pledges  31ade  to  our  Brothers  at  Home—The  Phcenix 
Park  Assassinations — Davitt  in  America — Death 
of  Miss  Fanny  Par nell. 

The  imprisonment  of  Parnell,  Dillon,  and  about 
six  liimdred  other  suspects  in  Ireland,  and  the  sup- 
pression of  the  Land  League  did  not  kill  the  move- 
ment. The  people  were  organized  and  had  learned 
self  reliance.  Miss  Anna  Parnell,  who  like  lier  mother 
and  sister  in  America  had  proved  herself  a  real  Gra-cchi, 
had  stepped  into  the  breach  made  vacant  by  the  im- 
prisonment of  lier  brother..  With  a  noble  band  of 
sisters  she  kept  the  holy  hre  alive,  and  has  done  wonders 
in  comforting  the  afflicted,  clothing  the  naked,  and 
feeding  the  hnnsrrv.  The  Land  League  has  been 
charged  with  fostering  crime  and  outrages  in  Ireland. 
On  the  contrary,  it  has  singularly  tended  to  prevent 
crime,  as  is  evident  from  the  following  statement: 

Let  us  first  compare  Ireland  with  Scotland  in  one  of 
the  years  (1870)  when  the  former  country  ^vas  alleged 
to  be  governed  by  the  Land  League.  In  that  year 
Scotland,  with  a  population  of  3,627,000,  reported  2,090 
convictions  for  criminal  offenses,  while  in  Ireland,  which 
liad  5,362,000  inhabitants,  only  2,207  persons  were  con- 
victed.   But  perhaps  it  will  be  more  satisfactory  to  • 


MICHAEL  DAVITT's  VIEWS. 


249 


contrast  the  state  of  things  in  Ireland  in  1879-80  with 
the  situation  in  the  same  country  during  the  previous 
famine  years  of  1847-48.  In  1847  the  total  number  of 
criminal  convictions  in  Ireland  was  15,233;  in  1879  the 
whoie  number,  we  will  not  say  of  convictions,  but  of 
crimes  reported  by  the  police,  was  but  977.  In  1848 
tlie  aggregate  number  of  convictions  was  18,206;  in  1880 
the  total  of  crimes  reported  was  but  slightly  in  excess 
of  that  registered  in  the  preceding  year.  In  1847  the 
homicides  were  171,  and  in  the  following  year  203;  in 
1879  and  1880  they  were  respectively  5  and  4.  Take  an 
even  more  astonishing  comparison.  In  1879  there  were 
in  Philadelphia,  the  City  of  Brotherly  Love,  not  less 
than  49  homicides,  whereas  in  the  whole  kingdom  of 
Ireland  only  5  persons  committed  murder.  Thus  it  was 
that  the  Land  League  governed  Ireland.  Its  command 
was:  Break  no  law,  and  in  the  instructions  issued  to 
every  branch  society,  and  to  every  individual  member, 
Michael  Davitt  repeated,  but  witn  infinitely  more  effect, 
the  words  of  O'Connell :  "  Whoever  commits  a  crime  is 
the  enemy  of  his  country." 

In  view  of  such  a  record,  every  point  of  which  can 
be  established  by  indisputable  evidence,  it  may  well 
appear  astonishing  that  the  Land  League  should  have 
provoked  the  hostility  of  the  British  government, 
instead  of  cliallenging  its  frank  approval  and  its 
vigorous  support.  It  was  suppressed  because  there  was 
not  room  for  both  the  Land  League  and  landlordism 
in  Ireland.  Its  operations  were  constitutional,  and  there 
was  but  one  way  to  paralyze  them,  viz.,  by  a  suspension 
of  the  Constitution  itself.  This  was  done  by  the 
Coercion  Act,  which  was  aimed  directly  and  avowedly 
at  the  Land  League,  and  in  whose  shadow  secret 
societies  have  flourished,  whereas  the  Land  League  has 
temporarily  been  crushed.  But  a  marvelous  change 
has  come  over  the  temper  of  Parliament  and  public* 


250 


IRELAl^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


opinion  within  a  year.  The  organizers  and  directors 
of  the  Land  League  have  been  released  ;  their  demands 
have  been  incorporated  in  the  programme  of  the  gov- 
ernment; while  alike  from  Liberal  and  Conservative 
headquarters  the  fiat  has  gone  forth  that  there  is  no 
longer  any  room  for  landlordism  in  Ireland. 

Michael  Davitt,  speaking  of  the  Irish  landlord,  says: 
'*He  makes  no  improvements,  builds  no  houses  or 
fences,  he  does  no  draining,  be  does  nothing  except 
secure  rent,  or  rather,  tbat  is  all  he  did  before  the  agi- 
tation began,  for  he  can  easily  carry  the  rent  he  gets 
now.  But,  more  than  that,  there  being  few  leases  in 
Ireland,  the  tenant  has  no  hold  upon  the  land  and  his 
rent  may  be  raised  at  any  time.  Should  the  landlord 
need  more  money  or  be  in  difficulties,  the  rent  is  screwed 
tip  a  peg.  The  rage  for  land  in  Ireland  and  the  com- 
petition between  the  tenants  was  such  that  a  farm 
could  always  be  rented.  More  than  that,  the  agents 
of  the  absentee  landlords  had  absolute  power  over  the 
tenants,  and  under  the  system  which  prevailed  of  giv- 
ing them  a  percentage  upon  what  they  collected  there 
was  a  premium  to  them  upon  extortion. 

'^Tlie  people  were  not  allowed  to  save  money.  The 
object  of  the  agent  was  to  get  all  that  remained  after  a 
bare  livins;  had  been  retained.  And  in  many  cases 
they  went  far  beyond  this.  It  is  an  absolute  face  that 
the  holdings  in  mau}^  parts  of  Ireland  only  gave  the 
tenants  potatoes  for  the  year,  and  the  rent  had  to  be 
earned  in  England  during  the  harvest  or  be  sent  by 
friends  from  America.  If  a  tenant  was  evicted  he  never 
received  anything  at  all  for  any  improvements.  He 
was  simx^ly  put  out.  You  must  remember  that  all 
this  was  the  state  of  thini^s  when  the  Land  Leacrue  be- 
gan  its  work,  because  it  has  been  altered  of  late.  We 
have  put  an  end  to  rack-renting,  and  we  have  stopped 
the  taking  of  farms  from  which  men  had  been  evicted.'* 


MICHAEL  DAVITT'S  VIEWS. 


251 


In  writing  on  the  subject  of  Irish  famines  and  emi- 
gration, he  is  equally  pronounced: 

''During  this  century  there  have  .been  five  famines: 
In  1817,  1823,  1833,  1848,  and  a  partial  one  in  1879  and 
1880.  It  has  been  estimated  by  English  statisticians  that 
2,000,000  of  people  starved  to  death  during  these  years. 
Think  of  what  that  means.  Two  millions  of  people 
have  died  because  they  could  not  get  bread  to  put  into 
their  mouths.  And  yet,  in  spite  of  the  fearful,  hor- 
rible,  and  ghastly  misery  which  stalked  through  the 
land  like  a  spectre  of  woe,  the  landlords  of  Ireland 
evicted  the  tenants  because  they  could  not  pay  the 
rent.  Talk  of  Shylock's  pound  of  flesh  !  What  was 
that  fancy  to  such  a  reality  1  They  turned  the  people 
out  to  starve  upon  the  wayside,  trying  to  eat  the  grass, 
in  1848.  You  cannot  believe  this,  but  it  is  as  true  as 
the  sunlight.  From  1844  to  the  present  time  the  popu- 
lation of  Ireland  has  decreased  over  three  millions 
and  a  half  b}'  emigration  and  famine.  Xow,  if  the 
same  causes  had  been  at  work  in  Ireland  as  have  been 
in  operation  in  England  and  Wales  during  the  same 
time,  the  population  of  Ireland,  instead  of  being,  as  it, 
is,  about  5,000,000,  would  have  been  13.000,000. 

"I  am  often  met  by  the  objection  in  America 
that  if  Ireland  cannot  support  her  present  population 
she  certainly  could  not  support  a  larger  one.  This 
view  of  the  situation,  although  based  upon  an  a]> 
parentl}^  logical  idea,  is  one  which  is  only  the  result  of 
ignorance  of  the  real  situation.  There  are  21,000,000 
acres  of  land  in  Ireland.  Of  these,  12,000,000  are  con- 
ceded to  be  as  good  land  as  there  is  anywhere  in  the 
world,  4,000,0.00  ore  suitable  for  pasturage,  and  the  re- 
maining 5,000,000  are  bog,  water,  and  waste.  Of  the 
12,000,000:  5,100.000  are  und^-r  cultivation,  the  remain- 
der being  given  up  to  the  great  grazing  farms  which 
were  formed  chiefly  during  the  famine  years. 


252 


lEELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


*'The  emigration  of  the  people  is  a  mistake,  because 
Ireland  has  a  right  to  her  full  population  as  long  as 
she  can  support  them.    But  the  landlords  have  con- 
sistently encouraged  emigration,  for  the  simple  reason 
that  their  object  has  been  to  get  rid  of  the  Irish  race 
if  possible,  and  either  devote  the  land  to  grazing  or  get 
English  and  Scotch  tenants.    To  return  to  the  famines, 
there  is  but  one  bad  season  between  300,000  tenant- 
farmers  and  famine.    The  people  have  been  pushed 
from  the  good  land  and  forced  to  reclaim  the  bad  in 
order  that  the  landlords  should  make  pasture-land.  I 
have  seen  tenant-farmers  in  several  parts  of  Ireland 
renting  holdings  the  soil  of  which  was  so  poor  that  they 
could  only  raise  potatoes  enough  to  last  half  the  year. 
The  rest  of  the  time  they  lived  upon  the  earnings  dur- 
incT  the  harvest  in  Enaland.  the  contributions  from 
their  friends  in  America,  or  by  begging.    Yet  they 
were  paying  a  pound  per  acre  a  year  for  the  miserable 
land,  the  whole  crop  of  which  would  only  sui)port  them 
for  half  a  year.    Where  did  they  get  the  money?  In 
the  same  way  they  got  what  they  lived  upon  for  the 
remaining  months,  after  the  potatoes  were  exhausted. 
jSTow,  I   want  you  for  one  moment  to  think  of  this 
calmly  and  quietly.    Think  of  what  it  means.  Think 
of  the  unspeakable  lust  for  gold  that  would  permit 
of  men  practicing  such  extortion.    Think  of  this,  and 
tell  me  if  it  was  not  time  for  landlordism  in  Ireland  to 
be  abolished?" 

But  persons  who  do  not  understand  the  real  condition 
of  Ireland  may  ask  why  the  people  live  so,  or  in  such 
a  place.    The  answer  is: 

"  Simph^  because  there  was  nowhere  else  to  live. 
Below  those  mountains  of  Connemai-a^  where  these 
people  live,  extends  one  of  the  most  fertile  tracts  of 
land  on  earth.  For  miles  upon  miles  the  rich  soil  is 
ready  to  yield  up  treasures  of  food.    But  this  soil  is 


5II3IIAEL  DAVITT's  VIEWS. 


253 


for  cattle,  the  landlords  say;  the  people  sliall  not 
cultivate  it  Under  a  better  system  the  Irish  peasant, 
once  assured  of  his  holding  by  law  and  guaranteed  his 
improvements,  would  mi\ke  this  soil  blossom  like  the 
rose,  would  support  his  wife  and  children  comfortably, 
and  would  earn  a  surplus  But  what  can  he  do  with 
such  land  as  he  can  get?  I  have  already  explained  to 
you  that  there  is  but  the  choice  of  the  land,  the  work- 
house, and  emigration  placed  before  the  peasant. 
With  his  passionate  attachment  to  his  native  soil  he 
clings  to  Ireland,  preterring  to  live  there  miserably — 
how  miserably  we  have  not  heart  to  tell — to  a  life  of 
comfort  elsewhere."" 

As  we  have  said,  the  homesteads  of  the  Irish  peasantry 
are  miserable  in  the  extreme: 

It  will  scarcely  be  denied  by  Americans  that  few 
influences  operate  so  powerfully  in  shaping  the  moral 
and  intellectual  character  of  a  people  as  those  which 
spring  from  comfortable,  clean,  and  orderly  homes;  or 
the  truth  of  the  converse  be  questioned  as  to  the  debas- 
ing tendencies  of  cheerless,  squalid,  and  untidy  dwell- 
ings. The  Census  Commissioners  for  Ireland  in  1841 
divided  the  dwellings  of  the  people  into  four  classes: 
The  fourth  class  comprised  all  mud-cabins  having  only 
one  room,  the  third  class  consisted  of  a  better  descrip- 
tion built  of  mud,  but  varvino;from  two  to  four  rooms 
and  windows'  the  first  class  included  all  houses  of  a 
better  description. 

''And  all  this  human  miserv — this  herdins:  in  mud- 
houses;  this  holocaust  of  hunian  beings;  this  diminu- 
tion of  our  population,  this  1,500,000  Irish  people 
doomed  to  live  at  the  present  hour  in  these  homes  of 
misery,  poverty,  squalor  and  cold, — because  England 
resolves  it  shall  be  so  in  the  interest  of  some  10,000  or 
15,000  Irish  landlords'." 

The  year  1882  opened  gloomy  enough  for  the  cause 


254 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


of  Ireland.  Botli  her  leaders  in  jail,  lier  prisons  full, 
coercion  and  repression  threatened  on  all  sides.  Despite 
all  this,  the  j^eople  at  home,  cheered  on  by  their 
kindred  in  America,  nobly  struggled  on  against  adverse 
circumstances  and  the  terrible  power  of  England. 

In  February,  1882,  T.  P.  O'Connor,  M  P.  for 
Galwav,  came  to  America  and  was  received  with  the 
greatest  enthusiasm  everywhere.  He  spoke  from  the 
Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  and  golden  stores  flowed  into 
the  Land  League.  The  Hon.  T.  M.  Healy,  M.  P.,  and 
Father  Eugene  Sheehy,  who  had  also  come  to  America, 
were  equally  successful  in  their  mission 

A  convention  met  in  Chicngo,  which  pledged  itself  to 
Mr.  O'Connor  to  raise  for  him  two  hundred  and  fifty 
thousand  dollars  before  his  return,  a  promise  which 
was  nearlv  if  not  altogether  fulfilled. 

On  April  12tli,  the  second  Convention  of  the  Land 
League  of  America  met  in  Washington,  D.  C,  at  which 
much  o;ood  work  was  done.  From  the  resolutions 
passed  at  this  meeting  we  make  the  following  extracts: 

"  Whereas,  The  suffering  Irish  tenant-farmers  look 
to  their  kindred  in  America  for  sympathy  with  them  in 
their  efforts  to  better  their  condition,  and  to  explain 
the  motives  of  their  agitation  and  protect  their  good 
name  before  the  world  from  the  falsehood  and  aspersion 
of  the  English  press,  therefore,  be  it 

'  Resolved,  That  this  convention  of  the  Irish  National 
Land  League  of  the  United  States  send  to  the  strug- 
gling tenant-farmers  ot  Irelandan  expression  of  profound 
sympathy  from  the  millions  of  their  race  in  America,  who 
are  proud  of  their  faithful  and  enduring  adherence  to 
tlie  principles  laid  down  by  their  brave  leaders,  now  in 
l)rison,  and  an  earnest  assurance  that  we  will  stand  by 
them  with  continued  moral  and  financial  supjoort  until 
tliey  have  succeeded  in  abolishing  their  antiquated  and 
destructive  land  system. 


PLEDGES  FROM  AMERICA. 


255 


Mesolved,  That  we  lieartilv  endorse  the  desire  of 
the  Irish  people  for  a  national  existence;  and  as  Ireland, 
first  by  force,  and  again  by  corruption,  was  robbed  of 
her  national  birthright,  we  pledge  ourselves  to  do  all 
that  is  consistent  with  American  citizenship  to  place 
her  once  more  among  the  nations. 

Resolced^  That  we  advise  the  farmers  of  Ireland  to 
continue  steadily  and  patiently  in  their  passive  resis- 
tance, which  has  ah^eady  proved  so  effective  a  weapon. 
We  exhort  them  to  stand  unflinchingly  by  the  policy 
left  them  by  their  leaders  now  in  prison,  and  to  keep 
fresh  in  memory  these  words  of  Charles  Stewart  Parneil, 
addressed  to  them  before  his  imprisonment:  "Let  no 
man  leave  his  post.  Continue  your  organization  just 
as  before,  and  have  others  ready  to  take  the  place  of 
those  who  may  be  arrested.  By  this  policy  of  i^assive 
endurance  the  Irish  people  command  the  respect  of  the 
Avorld  and  prove  themselves  worthy  of  freedom." 

The  following  officers  were  elected  at  this  convention 
to  preside  over  the  organization  for  the  ensuing  year: 
President,  James  Mooney,  of  Buffalo;  Hon.  P.  A. 
Collins,  First  Vice-President;  Eev.  Father  Cronin, 
Second  Vice-President;  John  J.  Hynes,  Secretary;  and 
the  Rev.  Lawrence  Walsh,  Treasurer. 

During  the  spring  of  '82  Secretary  Forster  flooded 
Ireland  with  troops,  and  resorted  to  all  kinds  of  in- 
timidation, even  to  the  shooting  down  of  women  and 
children.  The  people,  on  the  other  hand,  met  all  this 
with  a  firm  determination  not  to  be  cowed,  and  contented 
themselves  by  simply  offering  a  passive  resistance  to 
the  authorities.  Evictions  and  crime  increased  and  the 
government  soon  found  that  coercion  and  oppres- 
sion only  produced  reprisals  and  outrages,  and  that  tlie 
country  was  going  from  bad  to  worse. 

The  Ladies'  Land  League,  presided  over  by  Miss 
Anna  Parneil,  nobly  stepped  in  to  the  relief  of  the 


256 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


evicted,  tlins  saving  them  from  the  horrors  of  starvation 
and  the  poor-Louse. 

Gladstone  was  driven  to  desperation^  His  coercion 
policy  had  not  only  proved  a  failure,  but  had  exposed 
him  to  the  contempt  and  ridicule  of  the  world.  He 
and  Forster,  who  was  his  Mephistoi:)heles,  quarreled, 
and  on  May  2nd,  in  the  House  of  Lords,  Earl  Gran- 
ville, Secretary  of  State  for  Foreign  Afl'airs,  announced 
the  resignation  of  W.  E.  Forster,  Chief  Secretary  for 
Ireland,  and  the  intention  of  the  government  to  re- 
lease the  three  imprisoned  members  of  Parliament,  but 
added  that  the  reconsideration  of  other  cases  did  not 
extend  to  the  case  of  Michael  Davitt.  The  government 
had  no  new  policy  to  offer,  but  coercion  would  not 
be  renewed,  and  the  question  of  the  arrears  of  rent  and 
the  Bright  clauses  of  the  Land  Act  would  be  dealt  with. 

Wm.  E.  Gladstone  in  the  House  of  Commons  made  an 
announcement  similar  to  that  of  Earl  Granville  in 
the  House  of  Lords.  He  said  that  a  large  number  of 
other  suspects  would  be  released,  and  that  the  govern- 
ment, instead  of  renewing  the  Coercion  Act,  would  in- 
troduce a  measure  remedying  the  administration  of 
justice  in  L^eland,  but  made  the  special  reservation 
that  if  peace  and  security  should  be  jeo^oardized  by  the 
action  of  secret  societies  the  government  would  con- 
sider it  its  duty  to  propose  counteracting  measures. 

He  also  said  instructions  had  alreadj^  been  sent  to  Ire- 
land for  the  release  of  the  three  imprisoned  members  of 
Parliament,  and  that  the  lists  of  the  suspects  were  being 
carefalh^  considered  with  a  view  to  the  release  of  all  ex- 
cept those  who  were  arrested  on  suspicion  of  having  been 
personally  concerned  in  outrages.  These  releases  would 
be  on  the  government's  sole  responsibility.  The  re- 
lease of  Michael  Davitt  was  totalh^  distinct  from  the 
release  of  the  suspects,  and  was  a  question  it  might  be 
right  for  the  government  to  consider.    Gladstone  said 


THE  PITCENTX  PARK  ASSASSTXATIONS. 


257 


that  Forster  had  resigned  because  he  was  not  will- 
ing to  share  this  responsibility. 

This  was  followed  by  the  immediate  release  of  Par- 
nell,  Dillon,  and  Davitt.  The  release  of  the  prison- 
ers and  the  declaration  of  Gladstone  that  coercion 
would  not  be  renewed,  brought  joy  and  hope  to  the 
country.  It  was  even  said  that  Gladstone  had  con- 
sented to  accept  the  Parnell-Healy  amendments  to  the 
Land  Bill,  and  would  take  them  up  as  a  government 
measure. 

There  was  great  rejoicing,  which,  however,  was  dark- 
ened in  a  few  days  by  the  assassination  in  the  Phoenix 
Park,  Dublin,  of  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish,  who  was 
appointed  Chief  Secretary  for  Ireland  in  place  of  Wm. 
E.  Forster,  and  Under-Secretarv  Thomas  Henrv  Burke. 
This  atrocious  crime  caused  terror  and  consternation 
throughout  the  British  empire.  Irishmen  at  home  and 
abroad  denounced  the  crime  in  bitter  language,  and  the 
leaders  at  home  issued  the  following  address: 

To  the  People  of  Ireland: 

"  On  the  eve  of  what  seemed  a  bright  future  for  our 
country,  that  evil  destiny  which  has  apparently  pur- 
sued us  for  centuries  has  struck  at  our  hopes  another 
blow,  which  cannot  be  exaggerated  in  its  disastrous 
consequences.  In  this  hour  of  sorrowful  gloom  we 
venture  to  give  expression  to  our  profoundest  sym- 
pathy with  the  people  ol  Ireland  in  the  calamity  that 
has  befallen  our  cause  through  this  horrible  deed,  and. 
with  those  who  determined,  at  the  last  hour,  that  a 
policy  oL*  conciliation  should  supplant  that  of  terror- 
ism and  national  distrust.  We  earnestly  hope  that 
the  attitude  and  action  of  the  Irish  peoj)le  will  show 
to  the  world  that  an  assassination  such  as  has  startled 
us  almost  to  the  abandonment  of  hope  of  our  country's 
future  is  deeply  and  religiously  abhorrent  to  their- 


258 


IKKLAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


every  feeling  and  instinct.  "We  appeal  to  yon  to  sliow 
by  every  manner  of  expression  that,  amid  the  universal 
feeling  of  horror  which  the  assassination  has  excited, 
no  people  feel  so  deep  a  detestation  of  itS  atrocity,  or 
so  deep  a  sympathy  with  those  whose  hearts  must  be 
seared  by  it,  as  the  nation  upon  whose  prosperity  and 
reviving  hopes  it  may  entail  consequences  more  ruin- 
ous than  those  that  have  fallen  to  the  lot  of  unhappy 
Ireland  during  the  present  generation.  We  feel  that 
no  act  that  has  ever  been  perpetrated  in  our  country 
during  the  exciting  struggles  of  the  past  fifty  years  has 
so  stained  the  name  of  hospitable  Ireland  as  this 
cowardly  and  unprovoked  assassination  of  a  friendly 
stranger,  and  that  until  the  murderers  of  Cavendish 
and  Burke  are  brought  to  justice  that  stain  will  sully 
our  country's  name. 

* '  Charles  S.  Parxell, 

^'  John  Dillon, 

'  *  Michael  D avitt.  ' ' 

Mr.  Parnell  said:  '^I  am  horrified  more  than  I  can 
express.  This  is  one  of  the  most  atrocious  crimes  ever 
committed.  Its  effect  must  certainly  be  most  damag- 
ing to  the  interests  of  the  Irish  people.  I  have  always 
found  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  a  most  amiable  gen- 
tleman, painstaking  and  strictly  conscientious  in  the 
fulfilment  of  his  official  duties.  I  did  not  share  the 
disappointment  expressed  in  Liberal  Irish  circles  re- 
garding his  appointment,  as  I  anticipated  that  the 
principal  reforms  during  the  present  session,  such  as 
the  amendment  of  the  Land  Act,  would  be  under  Mr. 
Gladstone's  personal  supervision,  and  I  believed  that 
administrative  reforms  would  be  somewhat  postponed. 
I  cannot  conceive  that  any  section  of  the  people  of  Ire- 
land could  have  plotted  deliberately  against  the  life  of 
Lord  Frederick,  and  I  am  surprised  that  the  Dublin 
police,  w^ho  had  been  able  to  protect  Mr.  Forster,  should 


THE  PHCENIX  PARK  ASSASSINATIONS.  259 

apparently  not  have  taken  any  steps  to  watcli  over  his 
successor  during  the  few  hours  of  his  official  life  in 
Ireland.  There  seems  to  be  an  unhappy  destiny  pre. 
siding  over  Ireland,  which  always  comes  at  a  moment 
when  there  seems  some  chance  for  the  country,  to  de- 
stroy the  hopes  of  her  best  friends.  I  hope  the  people 
of  Ireland  will  take  immediate  and  practical  steps  to 
express  their  sympathy  with  Mr.  Gladstone  in  his 
most  painful  position."  .  i 

Mr.  Davitt  said  :  ''No  language  I  can  command  can 
express  the  horror  with  which  I  regard  the  murders  or 
my  despair  at  their  consequences.  When  I  heard  of 
them  on  Saturday  -night  I  could  not  credit  the  news. 
I  grieve  to  think  that  when  the  government  had  jusc 
run  a  risk  in  introducing  a  new  policy — when  every- 
thing seemed  bright  and  hopeful,  when  all  expected 
the  outrages  to  cease — this  terrible  event  should  dash 
our  hopes.  I  wish  to  God  I  had  never  left  Portland. 
The  crime  was  without  motive.  It  is  not  onlv  the  most 
fatal  blow  that  has  ever  been  struck  at  the  Land  League, 
but  one  of  the  most  disastrous  blows  which  has  been 
sustained  bv  the  national  cause  during  the  last  centurv. 
Its  occurrence  at  this  particular  juncture  seems  like  a 
terrible  destin^^  My  only  hope  is  that  the  assassins 
may  be  discovered  and  punished  as  they  deserve.  It  is 
wonderful  how  the  outrage  could  occur  within  a  few 
hundred  yards  of  the  constabularj^  depot." 

Mr.  Dillon,  in  an  interview,  said  he  deeply  deplored 
the  sorrowful  tidings.  He  fully  concurred  in  the 
opinions  on  the  outrage  expressed  by  Messrs.  Parnell 
and  Davitt.  Mr.  Sexton  said :  ''I  am  bewildered  and 
horrified.  I  regarded  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish  as  an 
amiable  and  J)ainstaking  gentleman.  He  was  certainly 
considered  a  capable  administrator.  The  first  feeling 
on  the  appointment  of  Lord  Frederick  was  undoubtedly 
one  of  disappointment,  but  it  began  to  be  gradually 


260 


IRELAND,  PAST  AKD  PEESENT. 


understood  that  Mr.  Gladstone  sent  Mm  to  Ireland  to 
have  the  advantage  of  the  service  of  one  with  whom  he 
had  long  worked,  thereby  enabling  him  to  a|)pl.y  his 
own  will  more  freely  to  the  Irish  difficulties.  Tiiere  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  there  was  the  slightest  personal 
feeling  against  Lord  Frederick  in  any  political  quarter 
of  Ireland.  I  cannot  help  surmising  that  he  must  have 
been  mistaken  by  the  murderers  for  some  one  else. 
Mr.  Burke  had  been  connected  with  the  Castle  for  many 
years.  Public  feeling  from  time  to  time  identified  him 
with  many  harsh  measures,  but  well-informed  jier- 
sons  have  alwavs  held  that  he  confined  himself  rieror- 
ously  to  his  duties.  He  was  rather  averse  than  other- 
wise to  concerning  himself  wdth  political  matters.  He 
w^as  very  little  known  to  the  Dublin  populace.  He 
was  present  unrecognized  at  a  great  political  meeting 
in  Phoenix  Park  last  summer.  He  belonged  to  a  land- 
owning family.  Many  people  have  for  a  long  time  be- 
lieved him  to  be  the  real  governor  of  Ireland.  The 
crime  is  the  more  inexplicable  when  one  considers  the 
good  temper  of  the  crowds  at  the  rejoicing  over  the 
release  of  the  suspects.'' 

As  the  murder  was  in  the  evening  and  in  a  public 
i:)lace,  and  as  the  assassins  have  not  been  arrested,  the 
impression  still  prevails  that  they  were  murdered  by 
emergency  and  landlord  agents,  whose  interest  it  was 
to  keep  the  country  agitated  and  to  compel  Glad- 
stone to  resort  again  to  coercion  and  oppression.  Be 
this  as  it  may,  they  have  so  far  succeeded,  for  Glad- 
stone, unable  to  withstand  the  brutish  clamor  of  the 
Irish  and  English  landlords  for  more  blood,  more 
coercion,  gave  way  and  introduced  his  Repression  Bill, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  tyrannical  draconic  measures 
of  ancient  or  modern  times. 

The  Irish  members  opposed  it,  but  their  arguments 
were  silenced  by  gag  law,  and  they  were  expelled  the 


0      m  T— ¥•  t  N  «  r   a   r-t     i -v  -r  ^  -r^  -x.t-^'T  ft 


MISS  FANNY  PARNELL. 


261 


Hoilse.  Thus  passed  into  law  a  statute  wliicli  is  a  dis- 
grace to  humanity  and  civilization,  and  which,  like 
hundreds  of  similar  acts,  will  only  tend  to  exasperate 
and  render  more  defiant  the  Irish  people.  Its  effect 
will  be  to  intensify  the  bitterness  against  England. 
The  Irish  at  home  and  in  America  realize  the  fact  that 
nothing  can  be  wrung,  from  the  justice  of  England, 
everything  must  be  got  through  her  fears,  and  there- 
fore look  hopefully  to  the  war  cloud  in  the  East, 
hoping  that  it  might  be  the  promised  star  to  light  them 
to  their  long-wished-for  opportunity. 

The  visit  of  Michael  Davitt  to  America  in  the  early  parfc 
of  July  was  not  as  fruitful  of  good  results  as  might 
have  been  anticipated.  The  new  scheme  of  national- 
izing the  land  of  Ireland  met  with  a  cold  reception,  for 
the  people  felt  that  a  change  of  front  in  face  of  the 
enemy  was  dangerous,  and  that  it  was  wiser  to  follow 
the  programme  and  policy  laid  down  by  the  Dublin  ' 
Convention  .and  adopted  by  Parnell,  than  any  new 
departure,  no  matter  how  commendable  it  may  be. 

Perhaps  tiie  most  decided  opponent  of  this  new 
scheme  was  the  gifted  and  ever-lamented  Miss  Fanny 
Parnell,  whose  sad  and  sudden  death  took  place  at  Bor- 
dentown,  IS".  J.,  July  20th,  aged  28  years.  This  pure 
and  gifted  lady,  who  gave  her  young  life  for  Ireland,  and 
whose  loss  the  Irish  race  deplore,  not  only  at  home  or  in 
America,  but  the  whole  world  over.  She  was  so  gentle, 
gifted,  so  pure,  so  unselfishly  patriotic  that  she  was 
loved,  admired,  and  respected  by  all  who  had  the 
pleasure  of  knowing  her.  She  was  the  foundress  of 
the  Ladies'  Land  League,  and  by  her  power  and  energy 
it  soon  extended  over  Ireland  as  well  as  America. 
When  the  Irish  leaders  were  flung  into  prison  she  ap- 
pealed to  the  ladies  of  Ireland  to  fill  up  the  breach,  like 
the  brave  women  of  Limerick  in  1091.  They  responded 
to  the  call  under  the  leadership  of  her  noble  sister, 


362 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Miss  Anna  Parnell,  and  when  the  government  con- 
gratulated themselves  that  the  Land  League  agitation 
was  crushed  out  with  its  imprisoned  leaders,  a  new 
organization,  under  the  guidance  of  Fanny  and  Anna 
Parnell,  confronted  them.  AVith  this  they  were  unable 
to  cope,  for  they  could  not  face  the  scorn  of  the  world 
by  imprisoning  women  who  had  violated  no  constitu- 
tional law.  It  did  well  enough  to  fling  men  into  prison 
as  "reasonable  suspects,"  but  with  women  it  was  a 
different  thing. 

Miss  Fanny  Parnell  was  a  ])oet  as  well  as  an  organizer 
and  prose  writer.  She  was  no  puny  imitator  or  twad- 
dling rhymester.  Slie  wrote  from  the  heart,  pouring 
out  its  love  for  L'eland  in  measured  strains  and  scath- 
ing words.  There  is  a  wonderful  wealth  of  love  and 
patriotic  ardor  and  heroic  sentiment  in  her  poetry. 
We  select  a  few,  just  as  you  would  take  a  bouquet  at 
random  from  a  rich  parterre  of  flowers. 

The  following  noble  chant,  addressed  to  her  country- 
men at  home,  is  full  of  power  and  ardor: 

HOLD  THE  HARVEST. 

Now,  are  you  men,  or  are  you  kine,  ye  tillers  of  the  soil? 
Would  you  be  free,  or  evermore,  the  rich  man  s  cattle,  toil? 
The  shaflow  on  the  dial  hangs,  that  points  the  fated  hour, — 
Now  hold  your  own!  or,  branded  slaves,  forever  cringe  and  cower. 

The  serpent's  curse  upon  yon  lies, — ye  writhe  within  the  dust; 

Ye  fill  3'our  mouths  with  beggars'  swill,  ye  grovel  for  a  crust! 

Your  lords  have  set  their  blood  stained  heels  upon  your  shameful  heads. 

Yet  they  are  kind, — they  leave  you  still  their  ditches  for  your  beds! 

Oh,  by  the  God  who  made  us  all, — the  seignior  and  the  serf, — 
Rise  up!  and  swear  this  day  to  hold  your  own  green  Irish  turf; 
Rise  up!  and  plant  your  feet  as  men,  where  now  you  crawl  as  slaves. 
And  make  your  harvest  fields  your  camps, — or  make  of  them  your 
graves. 

The  birds  of  prey  are  hovering  near,  the  vultures  wheel  and  swoop, — 
They  come,  the  coroneted  ghouls,  with  drum-beat  and  with  troop! 


MISS  FANNY  PAENELL. 


263 


They  come,  to  fatten  on  your  flesh,  your  children's  and  your  wives', — 
Ye  die  but  once, — hold  fast  your  lauds,  and  if  ye  can,  your  livesl 

Let  go  the  tremliJing  emigrant,— not  such  as  he  ye  need; 
Let  go  the  lucre-loving  wretch  that  flies  his  land  for  greed; 
Let  not  one  coward  stay  to  clog  your  manhood's  waking  power; 
Let  not  one  sordid  churl  pollute  the  Nation's  natal  hour! 

Yes!  let  them  go! — the  caitiff  rout,  that  shirk  the  struggle  now, — 
The  light  that  crowns  your  victory  shall  scorch  each  recreant  brow. 
And  in  the  annals  of  your  race,  black  parallels  in  shame. 
Shall  stand  by  traitor's  and  by  spy's  the  base  deseriefs  name. 

Three  hundred  years  your  crops  have  sprung,  by  murdered  corpses 
fed  — 

Your  famished  sires,  your  butchered  sires,  for  ghastly  compost  spread; 
Their  bones  have  fertilized  your  fields,  their  blood  has  fallen  like  rain; 
They  died  that  ye  might  eat  and  live, — God!  have  they  died  in  vain? 

Tiie  yellow  corn  starts  blithely  up, — each  fibre  from  a  grave. 
Alone,  torgot,  in  grinding  pangs,  their  lives  your  fathers  gave, 
They  died  that  you,  their  sons,  might  know,  there  is  no  helper  nigh 
Except  for  him,  who,  save  in  fight,  has  sworn  he  will  not  die. 

The  hour  has  struck.  Fate  holds  the  dice,  we  stand  with  bated  breath-. 
Now  who  shall  have  our  harvests  fair? — 'tis  Life  that  plays  with  death; 
Now  who  shall  have  our  Motherland?— 'tis  Right  that  plays  with  Might; 
The  peasant's  arm  were  weak  ir^deed,  in  such  unequal  fight! 

But  God  is  on  the  peasant's  side, — the  God  that  loves  the  poor; 
Ills  angels  stand  with  flaming  swords  on  every  mount  and  moor; 
They  guard  the  poor  man's  flocks  and  herds,  they  guard  his  ripening 
grain. 

The  robber  sinks  beneath  their  curse,  beside  his  ill-got  gain. 

O  pallid  serfs,  whose  groans  and  prayers  have  wearied  Heaven  full  long, 

Look  up!  there  is  a  Law  above,  beyond  all  legal  wrong; 

Rise  up!  the  answer  to  your  prayer  shall  come,  tornado-borne. 

And  ye  shall  hold  your  homesteads  dear,  and  ye  shall  reap  the  corn. 

But  your  own  hands  upraised  to  guard  shall  draw  the  answer  down. 
And  bold  and  stern  the  deeds  must  be,  that  oath  and  prayer  shall 
crown  ; 

God  only  fights  for  them  who  fight.— then  hush  the  useless  moan, 
And  set  your  faces  as  a  flint,  and  swear  to  Hold  Your  Own  I 

The  following  beautiful  and  deserved  tribute  from 
lier  pen  to  the  Irish  priests,  who  have  stood  so  un- 


264 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


flincliingly  forward  in  behalf  of  their  people,  during 
thex^resent  protracted  struggle,  as  they  ever  did  in  the 
past,  will  be  appreciated  by  our  readers: 

THE  IRISH  PRIESTS. 

When  Freedom  waved  her  wand  at  last 

O'er  Erin's  shore  rejoicing, 
With  Nature's  thousand  choral  throats 

Their  "jubilates"  voicing,— 

She  cried— and  every  breeze  was  hushed, 

And  every  song  suspended — 
"Come  forth!  O  thou  whose  patriot  deeds 

All  others  have  transcended; 

"Come  forth,  O  brightest  form  amidst 

A  glorious  constellation, 
And  on  thy  brow  this  wreath  shall  crown 

The  savior  of  a  nation  !"' 

Then  came  the  Warrior,  dark  and  stern, 

His  heart's  blood  slowl}'  oozing  : — 
"I  died,"  he  said  *'  for  Erin's  sake. 

The  grave  to  bondage  choosing." 

But  still  she  waved  her  wand  and  cried, 

"  Th)'  pain  was  quick  add  fleeting; 
Nor  feels  the  heart  the  body 's  pangs, 

With  war's  fierce  fever  beating." 

Then  came  the  Statesman,  calm,  austere, 

AYith  scroll  and  tablet  freighted ; 
"  I  toiled,"  he  said,  "  long  years  to  build 

A  race  regenerated. 

*'  'Mid  yelling  foes  I  worked  and  watched. 

Still  sure  of  high  fruition." 
But  Freedom  cried,  "  My  flowers  would  wilt 

Upon  thy  head,  Ambition!" 

The  Felon  came, — with  wasted  cheek. 

With  limbs  in  fetters  rotting, 
With  hideou.s  marks  on  mangled  back. 

And  tortured  body  clotting. 

"  Have  I,"  he  sighed,  "  on  thee  no  claim. 
For  whom  my  heart  was  broken?" 


MISS  FANNY  PARNELL. 


265 


But  Freedom  whispered. — "  Peace,  dear  childl 
One  greater  yet  hath  spoken." 

Then  Woman  came,  with  Spartan  eyes, — 

"  "When  Erin  bled  forsaken, 
My  prayers  went  up  in  secret  yet. 

That  soon  her  sons  might  waken. 

*'  And  when  the  hour  had  struck,  I  gave 

My  darlings  best  and  sweetest." 
.Then  Freedom  smiled, — but  still  she  cried, 
I'  Not  thine  the  work  completest. 

"Behold  the  One  of  all  who  e  er 

This  land  from  ruin  shielded, 
"Who  raised  my  banner  still  aloft, 

When  others  fled  or  yielded, — 

*•  Who  made  the  dark  Gethseraane 

Of  Erin's  fate  his  palace, 
And  first  before  all  others  pressed. 

To  drain  her  bitter  chalice; 

**  Who  with  the  Warrior  too  has  bled, 

And  with  the  Statesman  toiled, 
And  with  the  Woman  watched  and  prayed 

For  home  and  land  despoiled, — 

* '  Let  Mm  stand  forth,  who  ever  bore 

His  country's  sorest  burden!" 
Then  came  the  Priest,  and  on  his  brow 

Bright  Freedom  placed  the  guerdon. 

The  following  poem,  eiuitled  ''The  Utterance  of  an 
Irish  Heart,"  is  invested  with  a  sad  interest,  as  being 
the  last  that  came  from  her  gifted  pen.  It  was  written 
in  condemnation  of  the  "  new  departure,"  or  "nation- 
alization of  the  land"  scheme,  and  appeared  in  the 
columns  of  TJte  New  York  Sun  shortly  before  her 
death: 

What!  give  our  land  to  you,  England! 

What!  give  our  land  to  3'ou? 
Our  ravaged  land,  whose  every  rood 

Our  patriots'  bones  best  rew ; 
Our  blood  steeped  land,  our  plundered  land, 

Witl;  seed  of  niiirtyrs  sown. 
Our  tortured  land,  our  writhing  land. 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 


"Which  yet  we  call  our  own; 
Our  fearless  land,  our  noble  land, 

That  knows  not  how  to  yield, 
Our  laud  that  Freedom  set  apart, 

Her  chosen  battle-field. 
What!  give  her  up  to  you,  England, 

Slave-driver  to  the  world ! 
Whose  flag  for  murder  and  for  greed 

Is  evermore  unfurled; 
Our  glorious  land,  our  sacred  land, 

The  land  of  many  prayers. 
The  land  of  saints,  that  still  by  right 

Its  title  proudly  wears  1 
Aye,  tear  the  old  green  banner  down, 

And  toss  it  to  the  flames! 
Wipe  out  the  living,  blood-writ  page 

That  bears  our  heroes'  names; 
Let  Emmet's  lonel}^  tombstone  wait 

Its  epitaph  in  vain, — 
And  great  O'Connell's  broken  heart 

Now  break  for  us  again! 
Then  you  shall  have  our  land,  England, 

And  you  shall  have  our  necks. 
And  with  our  uufraterual  hate 

No  more  your  love  we'll  vex ; 
But  you  shall  have  our  crops  and  gold. 

Our  flesh  and  blood  and  souls, 
While  every  joy-bell  ou  our  shores 

The  nation's  death-knell  tolls. 
Now,  well  for  us  we  know  at  last 

The  secret  of  our  pain; 
We  thought  'twas  you,  kind  England,  held 

The  scourge,  the  sword,  the  chain; 
Now  well  indeed  the  clearer  light 

Has  dawned  lOr  us  at  last; 
*Tis  not  the  light  we've  waited  long, 

The  sunburst  of  the  past, — 
New  suns  we  dreamed  not  of  dispel 

The  errors  of  our  sires, 
And  clasping  brothers'  hands  shall  quench 

Decrepit  Freedom  fires. 
So  you  shall  have  our  land.  England, 

And  'mid  forgotten  graves 
We'll  squat  and  think  how  sweet  a  thing 
Is  brotherhood  for  slaves  1 


IllELA^^D  OF  1782. 


2G7 


.  CHAPTER  XIII. 

1782  A^^^D  1882. 

The  Dublin  ExMhition —  Tlie  O  Connell  Monument — 
S/cetck  of  Dublin  and  Vicinity — 1882  and  its  Mem- 
ories— DubUn  and  its  Public  Buildings, 

IRELAND  OF  1782. 

AViTii  v.  liat  pride  does  nnlrisliman  cast  his  thoughts 
back  one  hundred  years.  Then  Ireland  stood  proudly 
before  the  world  as  a  nation  of  freemen  and  soldiers, 
sworn  to  assert  their  liberty,  even  at  the  mouth  of  the 
cannon  and  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 

One  hundred  years  ago  last  December  three  gentlemen 
sat  in  the  library  of  a  great  mansion  on  the  north  side 
of  Dublin  City  in  earnest  council.  They  were  the  Earl 
of  Charlemont,  general  of  Irish  Volunteers  and  colonel 
of  the  First  Ulster  Regiment;  Henry  Gn^ttan,  colonel 
of  Dublin  Volunteers,  and  Henry  Flood,  also  Volunteer 
officer,  and  the  last  member  who  attended  the  sitting 
of  an  Irish  House  of  Commons  in  Volunteers'  uniform. 
Tiie  house  they  sat  in  was  Charleniont  House;  the  sub- 
ject they  discussed,  Irish  independence.  The  time 
was  critical,  the  juncture  momentous.  Hard  was  the 
earth  without  and  cold  the  air  around,  but  thej^eople — 
plebeian  and  patrician — were  aflame,  and  the  heart  of 
Irelnnd  throl)bed  with  new  life  and  hope.  The  frozen 
earth  rang  with  the  martial  tread  of  one  hundred 
thousand  drilled  and  armed  men,  and  echoed  the  rum- 
ble of  two  hundred  cannon.    Abroad  the  lion  had 


268 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PKESENT. 


quailed  under  the  eagle,  the  Union  Jack  had  gone 
down  before  the  Stars  and  Stripes,  the  surrendered 
sword  of  England  was  in  the  hand  of  victorious  Wash- 
ington. At  home,  even  on  her  own  seas,  the  merchant 
ships  of  "  Merrie  England"  needed  the  convoy  of 
stately  men-of-war  to  save  them  from  the  combined 
fleets  of  America  and  France  that  swept  and  swooped 
over  the  waters.  Yet  England  and  her  German  king 
would  fain  learn  nothing,  would  close  both  eyes  to 
England's  difficulty,  to  Ireland's  opportunity.  The 
Third  William's  promise  to  England's  manufacturers 
had  been  kept  to  the  letter.  Irish  manufactures  had 
been  discouraged  to  the  utmost.  The  woolen  trade 
was  killed.  The  British  Parliament  had  usurped  the 
functions  of  the  king,  lords,  and  commons  of  Ireland, 
overridden  them,  heard  appeals  from  them,  ignored 
them,  and  were  evidently  determined  to  blot  them  out. 
It  was  easier  said  than  done,  conceived  than  accom- 
plished. There  were  then  only  five  thousand  legular 
troo^is  in  the  whole  land.  There  were  one  hundred 
thousand  volunteers. 

Such  was  the  situation  when  on  the  evening  we  have 
mentioned,  in  the  Christmas  time  of  1781,  Charleniont, 
the  accomplished  courtier  and  patriot,  the  brilliant  but 
unstable  Flood,  and  Henry  Grattan,  held  their  memora- 
ble conclave.  Flood  was  rich,  with  £5,000  a  year,  but 
as  Grattan  himself  put  it,  "  Charlemont  was  poor  as 
any  peer,"  and  "I  as  any  commoner."  The  summons 
to  the  famous  convention  of  Dungannon — originated  by 
Mr.  Dawson — had  been  sped  from  Charlemonf  s  own 
regiment  (the  Ulster  First)  for  the  15tli  of  February, 
1782.  It  was  thf^  framinsr  of  the  resolutions  to  be 
adopted  thereat  that  engaged  the  triumvirate.  Grattan 
drew  up  the  first,  which  ran  thus:  "That  a  claim  of 
any  bod}^  of  men  other  than  the  king,  lords,  and  com- 
mons of  Ireland  to  make  laws  to  bind  this  country  is  • 


IKELAIN^D  OF  1782, 


269 


unconstitiitional,  illegal,  and  a  grievance."    Flood  cast 
the  second.    A  gentleman  named  Dobbs  stood  booted 
and  spurred  by  the  side  of  a  fleet  horse  at  the  door. 
He  had  the  resolutions  in  his  saddle-bags,  and  mount- 
ing, was  ready  to  be  away  to  the  north  on  his  mission, 
when  Grattan,  flashed  and  bareheaded,  hurried  to  the 
door,  and  hailing  the  courier,  handed  him  another  and 
the  third  resolution.    It  read:  "That  we  hold  the  right 
of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion  to  be  equally 
sacred  in  others  as  in  ourselves;  that  we  rojoice  in  the 
relaxation  of  the  penal  laws  against  our  Roman  Catholic 
fellow-subjects,  and  that  we  conceive  the  measure  to  be 
fraught  with  the  happiest  consequences  to  the  union 
and  prosperity  of  the  inhabitants  of  Ireland."  Need- 
less to  tell  the  tale  of  the  convention:  how  on  the  ISili 
February.  1782,  two  hundred  and  forty-two  delegates, 
representinir  one  hundred  and  forty-three  armed  corps, 
assembled  in  the  historic  church  of  Dungannon;  how 
they  passed  through  the  steep  and  ancient  streets, 
lined  with  volunteers,  arrayed 

"  In  lielm  and  blade, 
And  plumes  in  the  gay  wind  dancing;" 

how  the  solemn  session  lasted  from  noon  till  night;  how 
the  resolutions  were  adopted  with  enthusiasm,  but  not 
without  deliberation;  and  how  the  last,  the  one  which 
united  Ireland,  Catholic  and  Protestant,  as  one  man, 
proposed  by  Mr.  Pollock,  was  seconded  in  the  most 
successful  speech  of  the  sitting  by  a  Presbyterian 
minister,  the  Rev.  Mr.  Black,  whose  name  should  go 
down  in  history  written  with  a  pencil  of  light.  At 
eight  o'clock  the  session  closed,  and  the  delegates 
issued  from  tlie  church  into  a  wilderness  of  illumina- 
tions and  an  applauding  multitude. 

The  16th  of  April  dawned  at  last.  The  Irish  capital 
was  filled  with  Volunteers.    A  bright  sun  shone  upon 


270  lEELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT.  ' 

the  gay  and  glittering  masses  of  the  national  army — 
of  cavalry,  infantry,  and  artillery.  They  guarded  the 
approaches  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament  standing  out 
in  low-browed  loveliness,  fresh  and  stately  in  the  clear 
atmosphere,  above  the  throng  and  the  bustle,  the  clatter 
of  scabbard,  and  the  din  of  many  voices.  Inside,  the 
galleries  of  the  house,  packed  from  early  morn  with 
fair  women  and  brave  men,  imparted  the  liveliest  color 
to  the  scene;  and  bright  eyes  shone  and  witty  words 
were  sj)oken;  and  silken  scarfs  of  varied  hue  hung  in 
gay  dalliance  on  the  balustrade  or  kissed  many  a  snowy 
neck;  while  upon  the  floor  below  the  principal  actors- 
in  the  great  sci3ne  upon  which  the  curtain  was  about 
to  rise  had  gathered  in  thoughtful  groups,  and 
awaited  with  concern  and  anticix^ation  the  issue  of  a 
memora'ble  day.  The  regular  troo^is  lined  Bame 
Street  for  the  passage  of  the  Lord-Lieutenant.  The 
hour — the  moment — at  last  arrived,  and  Grattan  rose. 
He  was  ill,  but  the  light  of  victory  illumined  his  pale 
face— the  Hush  of  triumph  was  on  his  cheek  and  on  his 
brow. 

"  Deep  on  his  front  engraven. 
Deliberation  sat,  and  public  care, 
And  princely  counsel  in  his  face  yet  shone." 

The  patriot  moved  an  amendment  to  the  ade're^s  to 
the  king,  declaring  "  that  the  king's  subjects  in  Ireland 
are  a  free  people,*"  that  "the  crown  of  Ireland  is  an 
imperial  crown  inseparably  annexed  to  the  crown  of 
Great  Britain,  but  that  the  kingdom  of  Ireland  is  a 
distinct  kingdom  with  a  Parliament  of  her  own,  the 
sole  legislature  thereof — that  there  is  no  body  of  men 
competent  to  make  laws  to  bind  this  nation  except  the 
king,  lords,  and  commons  of  Ireland — a  right  which 
we  claim  as  our  birthright  and  which  we  cannot  yield 
but  with  our  lives."  Grattan  sat  down  in  a  tempest 
f>f  acclamation.    Opposition  was  vain.    The  orator's 


IKELAND  OF  1882. 


271 


voice  within  and  the  people's  hoarse  roar  without 
settled  the  matter  without  discussion  or  division.  Mr. 
Brownlow  seconded  the  amendment  to  the  address. 
It  was  carried  nemine  contradicente^  and  the  day  was 
won — and  was  Ireland's.  The  joy  in  town  and  country 
was  spontaneous,  universal,  great.  It  seemed  as  if 
Ireland  had  begnn  a  new  existence.  Lord  Camden 
said  of  the  situation:  "It  is  all  folly  talking  of  simple 
repeal;  the  thing  is  done."  It  was  done.  But  the 
shrewd  Camden,  afterwards  addressing  a  meeting  of 
Volunteers,  advised  them  to  "keep  it  up,  for  England 
will  never  forgive  you."  The  thing  was  done.  The 
lords  had  to  follow  the  commons.  "I  carried  the 
lords  upon  my  back,"  wrote  Grattan,  "and  a  heavier 
load  I  never  bore.  I  could  never  have  got  them  to  move 
but  for  the  bavonets  of  the  Volunteers."  The  Kino- 
gave  liis  royal  assent  to  the  Act  of  Repeal  on  the  21st 
of  June,  1782.  Then  ensued  a  term  of  unprecedented 
prosperity  in  Ireland.  Population  doubled,  wealth 
quadrupled,  manufactures  flourished,  Irish  learning, 
wit,  gallantrj^  and  eloquejice  formed  a  dazzling  con- 
stellation. Grattan  and  Curran,  Archibald  Hamilton 
Rowan,  Napper  Tandy,  Wolfe  Tone,  Father  O'Leary, 
are  only  a  few  of  the  lights  in  a  firmament  of  2,000 
stars.  "Let  us  drink,"  cried  Grattan,  "  the  16th  of 
,  April,  1782." 

IRELAND  OF  1882. 

The  New  Year's  sun  of  Ireland's  1882  rose  on  no 
Volunteers,  no  Parliament,  no  industries  that  build  up 
a  nation.  His  rays  fall  upon  a  i3rison,  not  upon  a 
palace.  The  rponej^- changer  occupied  the  Parliament 
House;  the  patriot,  the  prison.  Christmas,'  companion 
picture  to  the  sitting  of  an  emanci^^ated  Parliament  was 
Christmas  in  a  Kilmainham  cell,  revealinj?  the  leader 
of  the  Irish  people — the  elect  of  three  constituencies 


272 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


royal  Meatli,  Land  League  Mayo,  "rebel"  Cork — sick- 
ening over  prison  "skilly."  The  contrast  to  April  16tli, 
1782,  was  the  exercise-vard  of  a  common  cuttliroat's 
jail  crammed  with  the  best  blood,  the  bravest  souls  of 
Ireland,  and  the  poor  peasant  susj'jected  of  an  offense 
for  which  there  is  no  trial.  AYrote  Henr}^  Grattan: 
"  There  are  two  days  in  Irish  history  that  1  can  never 
forget — the  one  on  which  we  gained  our  freedom.  How 
great  the  triumph!  How  moderate!  How  well  it  was 
borne — with  what  dignity  and  with  all  absence  of  vul- 
gar triumph!  I  shall  ever  remember  the  joy  on  that 
occasion.  The  other  was  the  day  on  which  we  lost  our 
Parliament.  It  was  a  savage  act,  done  by  a  set  of  as- 
sassins who  were  brought  into  the  House  to  sell  their 
country  and  themselves.  They  did  not  belong  to  Ireland. 
Some  were  soldiers,  all  were  slaves.  Everything  was 
shame  and  hurry  and  base  triumph," 

What  has  this  "Union"  brought  to  Ireland?  Two 
armed  insurrections.  Three  famines.  Pestilence — sure 
sutler  in  their  train.  A  sextuple  decimation  of  her  sons 
and  daughters.  A  population  fallen  to  half.  Fifty- 
two  Coercion  Acts.  Commercial  catastrophe.  In- 
dustrial stagnation.  Perennial  agitation.  The  hegira 
of  nobility.  The  degradation  of  tlie  gentry.  Desolated 
homes.  Deserted  squares.  The  emasculation  of  the 
bar.  Universal  discontent,  class  hatred,  and  inter-  , 
national  ill-will.  The  flight  of  the  people  and  the 
perpetuation  in  a  foreign  land  of  racial  enmity  and 
hostility,  bearing  bitter  fruit  year  after  year  in  raids 
and  dynamite  and  rumbling  nnrest,  of  which  no  man 
can  see  the  settlement  and  the  end. 

Unroll  the  Union  scroll,  and  what  is  there?  Like  the 
unrolling  of  a  mummy — nothing  but  old  bones  and 
rotten  rags.  It  is  on  record  that  Scott,  Lord  Clonmel, 
and  Lord  Chief  Justice  of  Ireland,  confessed,  when  near 
hia  end,  that  the  rebellion  of  -98— Lord  Edward's  and 


IllELAND  OF  1862. 


273 


Emmet's  rebellion — had  been  enconrngccl  by  the  Gov- 
ernment, in  order  to  pass  the  Union.  Camden  was 
right.  "  Keep  it  up,"  cried  lie  to  the  Volunteers,  "  for 
England  will  never  forgive  you."  They  failed  to  keep 
it  up.  Flood  fought  with  Grattan.  Grattan  quarreled 
with  the  Volunteers.  The  devilish  policy — ''divide  et 
imjpera^ — proved  too  much  for  them. 

To-day  no  Irishman  may  carry  arms — the  lirst  right 
of  a  free  man.  To-day  40,000  soldiers  and  police 
collect  the  rents  in  and  are  in  martial  occupation  of 
an  island  within  half  a  day's  journey  of  the  throne. 
Yet  the  saying  of  Charles  James  Fox  inducing  the  King 
to  acknowledge  the  independence  of  the  Irish  Parlia- 
ment is  as  true  to-day  as  it  was  one  hundred  years  ago: 
''Unwilling  subjects  are  little  better  than  enemies." 
Instead  of  being  the  brightest  je^vel  in  the  crown  of  the 
Queen,  Ireland  and  her  people  are  a  constant  thorn  in 
England's  side,  Avhat  Poland  is  to  Russia,  what  Hun- 
gary was  to  x\ustria — a  w^eakness,  not  a  strength.  A 
Liberal  government  has  disgraced  itself  by  being  the 
jailer  of  four  hundred  and  sixt^^-live  prisoners — more 
than  one  for  every  day  in  the  year.  A  prime  minister 
who  won  fame  by  the  general  jail-delivery  of  Naples, 
contradicts  his  life  by  the  general  jail  packing  of  Ireland. 
A  tribune  whose  bright  w^ords  will  live  forever  belies 
them  in  his  ministerial  acts,  and  contradicts  in  the  cabi- 
net his  great  axiom  before  the  populace.  "Force  is  no 
remedy."  The  nominal  governors  of  the  countr}^  rule 
from  the  loop-holed  fortalices  of  the  Castle.  "While 
prisoners  receive  a  national  testimonial,  the  members 
of  the  government  are  the  butts  for  nicknames.  Let 
us  quote  the  words  of  a  great  English  minister  again.  • 
Fox  wrote  to  Lord  Charlemonf  one  Inrndred  years  ago  : 
''There  maybe  a  government  in  Iieland  of  which  Grat- 
tan is  not  ashamed  to  take  a  part.''  What  Irishman 
to-dny  could  take  office  and  preserve  the  national  con- 


274 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  niP:SENT. 


iidence?  Yet  it  is  ;is  true  now  as  it  was  then  that  no 
country  can  ever  prosi)er  when  -what  should  be  the  am- 
bition of  men  of  lionor  is  considered  as  a  disgrace. 
The  tiger-striped  clothing  and  broad  nrrow  on  the 
patriot  prisoner's  back  are  held  in  more  honor  tliim  the 
Winsdor  uniform  or  the  regalia  of  the  Knight  of  St. 
Patrick.  An  Irish  archbishop  and  a  bishop  visited  the 
convict  Davitt  at  Portland  with  national  acclaim.  Their 
lordships  w'ould  be  as  shy  of  Dublin  Castle  and  its 
powerful  denizens  as  his  satanic  majesty  of  holy- water. 
Charles  Stewart  Parnell's  levee  in  the  cage  at  Kilmain- 
ham,  wherein  like  a  wild  beast  in  a  menagerie  the  sus- 
pect could  alone  see  the  visitor,  was  eagerly  watched, 
not  alone  by  the  few  favored  with  admission,  but  by 
an  anxious  country.  It  was  like  Grattan's  when  he 
lived  opposite  the  Castle  one  hundred  years  ago. 

Tell  us  not  "tis  sentiment."  Is  ''keeping  a  firm 
grip"  on  the  land  mei^ely  sentiment?  Is  "Hold  the 
Harvest"  only  sentiment?  Or,  again,  is  there  noiliing 
more  sterling  than  empty  sentiment  in  the  thousand 
pounds  for  the  jnterned  Dr.  Kenny,  in  the  hundjeds  a 
week  to  feed  the  prisoners,  in  the  thousands  passing 
from  America  to  Mr.  Egan  in  Paris?  But  to  any  man 
who  thinks,  ruler  or  ruled,  friend  or  foe,  foreigner  or 
native,  they  all  reveal  the  same  spirit,  the  striving,  the 
straining,  the  yearning  for  substantial  as  well  as  sen- 
timental home  government  and  self-dependence. 

History  repeats  itself.  With  the  struggle  for  inde- 
pendence in  1782  came  also  the  revival  of  industry. 
The  ballad  of  that  day  might  be  sung  in  this: 

"Ye  noble  men,  in  place  or  out, 
Ye  volunteers,  so  bnivc  and  stout. 
Ye  dames  that  flaunt  at  ball  or  rout. 
Wear  Irish  manufacture. 

**Nor  richest  squire  nor  proudest  peer 
Need  scorn  our  humble  homespun  gear, 


IRELAND  OF  1882. 


275 


No  stuff  on  earth  stands  wear  and  tear 
Like  Irish  manufacture. 

■  "  And  if  we'll  all  together  stick,  ■  ; 

We'll  give  our  enemies  a  lick, 
And  Manchester  to  the  ^ — 1  kick. 
With  Irish  manufacture." 

Sentiment  and  substance  were  never  better  blended 
since  1782  in  Ireland  than  in  tlie  present  popular  up- 
heaval. The  practical  shrewdness  of  a  utilitarian  age 
and  of  a  new  and  friendly  world  is  judiciously  blended 
with  the  impetuosity  and  fire  which  were  often  wasted 
in  Plumes  Pass  and  Blackwater,  at  Limerick,  Augh- 
rim,  or  Athlone. 

1882  AND  ITS  MEMORIES. 

On  the  15th  of  August  a  great  national  eveub 
took  place  in  Ireland,  the  celebration  of  the  national 
Centennial,  the  unveiling  of  the  O'Connell  Monument, 
and  the  openinc:  of  the  Dublin  Exhibition.  A  hun- 
dred years  before,  amid  the  clashing  of  cathedral  bells 
and  the  booming  of  cannon,  thf  birrh  of  Irish  Free- 
dom was  proclaimed.  The  armed  manhood  of  Ireland 
had  sworn  that  Eiiirlish  law  should  no  Ioniser  be  obeyed 
in.  Ireland,  and  they  had  made  good  their  oath. 
Greater  and  of  more  moment  than  the  birth  of  any 
hero  or  statesman,  was  this  resurrection  of  a  people. 
For  a  long  while  it  had  seemed  that  there  was  not,  and 
never  again  could  be,  an  Irish  people  in  Ireland — only 
an  English  colony;  when,  all  at  once,  somewhat  like  a 
lightning  flash  in  the  dark  midnight,  a  nation  leaped 
from  out  the  chaos  of  tyranny  and  wrongand  slavery. 
True,  the  day  of  freedom  was  brief,  and  the  sun  soon 
set.  Yet  something  more  than  the  memory  of  that 
passing  gleam  remained  of  it  all.  Truths  that  had 
slumbered  through  long  years  in  the  hearts  of  men 
were  freely  outspoken,  never  again  to  be  hidden  under 


276 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


vain  plirasings.  Our  rulers  have  tried  to  bayonet 
these  truths,  enunciated  in  1782;  nay,  they  have  wished 
to  purchase  them,  and  so  make  bond-slaves  of  them; 
even  in  our  own  days  the  struggle  between  purblind 
authority,  unable  to  cotitrol  things  except  by  its  sword 
or  its  gold,  and  these  i)rinci])les  of  which  we  are  the 
inheritors,  has  not  quite  ceased.  From  generation  to 
generation  has  the  strife  been  waged,  down  to  our  own 
time;  and  that  Irishmen  may  know  something  of  those 
who  stood  up  to  defeat  opi^ression  a  century  ago,  of 
their  aims  and  their  sacrifices,  of  what  they  did  and 
what  they  failed  to  do,  we  purpose  to  set  down  in 
order  a  brief  history  of  them  and  of  their  times;  so, 
learning  how  they  failed,  we  may  be  taught  how  not 
to  fail,  and  thereby  be  strengthened. 

There  is  no  need  to  speak  of  the  struggle  of  wdiich 
the  Boyne  and  Aughrim  were  incidents,  and  which  was 
ended  by  the  famous  treaty,  and  the  flight  of  the  "  Wild 
Geese."  It  was  the  last  time  that  old  royal,  loyal  Ire- 
land fought  for  a  king.  Bigli  Semus  agus  Eire"' 
was  the  cry  of  the  men  who  held  Athlone  bridge; 
doubtless  ^/rehad  the  highest  place  in  their  thoughts, 
but  the  unfortunate  loyalty  to  an  English  king,  which 
had  ruined  the  Irish  cause  before,  proved  fatal  then 
again.  ]S"othing availed  to  save  Ireland,  neither  bravery 
nor  skill,  and  soon  the  foreign  soldiers  of  William  laid 
the  people,  bound  and  helpless,  at  the  feer  of  an  upstart 
aristocracy;  whereupon  the  aristocracy  proceeded  to 
legislate  for  Ireland.  Then  commenced  the  making  of 
the  penal  laws.  Their  property,  their  civil  and  relig- 
ious rights  were  confirmed  to  the  Catholics  by  the 
treaty  of  Limerick;  but  never  has  it  been  known  that 
any  compact  was  too  solemn  to  be  violated  by  England, 
when  urged  thereto  by  English  greed.  For  avarice 
was  entirely  the  motive  of  the  penal  laws.  The 
Williamite  settler  cared  little  for  the  salvation  in  an- 


1882  AND  ITS  MEMORIES. 


277 


other  world  of  Papist  souls;  lie  cared  much,  though, 
for  the  possession  in  this  of  a  Papist' s  estate.  He  knew 
that  he  had  won  his  property  by  the  chance  of  war,  as 
s^^oil  taken  from  the  enemy;  he  feared  that  he  should 
lose  it  in  the  same  say.  So,  to  save  trouble  in  tlie 
future,  It  was  judged  well  to  root  out  the  vanquished 
race.  In  earlier  times  English  kings  and  generals,  like 
James  I.,  burning  with  a  flagrant  zeal"  for  the  good 
of  Ireland,  had  tried  to  exterminate  the  Irish  with  the 
edge  of  the  sword.  All  ;ittempts  of  the  kind  had  failed, 
and  now  the  slower  process  of  legal  enactment  was  X)ut 
in  force  to  the  same  end.  One  object  was  kept  steadily 
in  view — to  render  life  in  Ireland  intolerable  to  Cath- 
olics, or,  failing  their  absolute  expulsion,  to  degrade 
them  to  the  level  of  brutes.  That  the  "Pro'testant 
interest"  might  feel  the  safer,  an  act  was  x^assed  for 
disarming  the  Papists,  and  then,  in  truth,  il^  fared 
badly  with  the  Catholic  who  had  excited  the  displeasure 
of  his  Protestant  neighbor.  He  might  be  visited  atany 
hour  of  the  night,  and  his  bed  searched  for  arms. 

No  Papist  was  safe  from  suspicion  who  hai  any  money 
to  pay  in  fines;  and  woe  to  the  Papist  who  had  a  hand- 
some daughter!"  says  Mitchel.  In  common  justice  to 
the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries,  it  must  be 
said  that  Philistine  legislation  of  the  same  nature  is 
not  quite  unknown  in  our  enlightened  age.  The  whole 
penal  code  may  be  summed  up  in  a  sentence.  By  it 
the  Catholics  were  deprived  of  every  civil,  political, 
and  human  right,  even  of  the  rigid  to  lice.  It  was 
.gravely  laid  down  as  a  principle  of  law  by  Lord  Chan- 
cellor Bowes  that  no  such  beings  ns  Catholics  existed, 
or  coul-d  exist,  within  the  land.  To  give  some  color  of 
justification  to  new  exactions  and  fresh  enactments, 
the  settlers  pretended  that  they  suspected  the  loyalty'* 
of  tlie  Catholics,  and  dreaded  their  vengeance  in  cas(» 
of  an  armed  rising  of  the  people.    Perhaps  there  was 


278 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKICSENT. 


Bome  sincerity  in  these  declarations.    They  knew  that 
(he  Catholics  had  no  reason  to  be  loyal,  and  that  Uieir 
vengeance  would  be  little  more  tlian  justice.    And  yet 
there  was  no  ground  for  these  apprehensions;  the 
Catholics,  with  shame  be  it  said,  were  loyal;  at  least 
those  excellent  Catholic  historians,  Plowden  and  Curr}^ 
plume  themselves  greatly  upon  the  fact.    Those  who 
might  have  been  their  leaders  were  shedding  their 
blood  in  the  service  of  every  foreign  power  hostile  to 
England;  those  at  home  were  disarmed,  disheartened, 
and  impoverished.    Thus,  when  all  England  was  shaken 
to  the  centre  by  the  efforts  of  the  Stuarts  to  recover 
their  lost  throne,  no  attempt  was  made  in  Ireland  to 
profit  by  the  occasion.    The  Catholic  gentry  might 
hum  under  their  breath  the  tune  of  the  ''Blackbird," 
a  toast  might  now  and  then  be  drunk  to  the  healtli  of 
the  "king  over  the  water,"  or  to  the  "little  gentleman 
in  black" — meaning  the  mole  whose  mole- hill  caused 
King  William's  horse  to  stumble,  which  stumble  of 
the  brute  broke  the  "deliverer's"  neck;  but  their  dis- 
affection ended  there.    Thej'  had  sunk  to  that  lowest, 
most  fearful  dei)tli  of  abasement,  wherein  the  slave 
hugs  his  fetters  and  contents  himself  with  the  poor 
boon  of  existence.    And  so  they  remained  for  a  long 
hundred  years,  tranquilly  submissive  to  the  tyranny 
which  ground  their  faces  in  the  dust.    They  had  no 
more  infiuence  on  the  proceedings  of  Parliament,  or  on 
the  course  of  public  events,  than  liave  at  this  moment 
the  Sioux  Indians  on  the  foreign  policy  of  the  United 
States.    AVlien  one  speaks  of  an  "American"  he  does 
not  mean  an  aborigine,  but  a  settler  or  the  descend^int 
of  a  settler;  in  the  same  way  the  expression  "Irish 
nation"  was  taken  to  mean  the  colony  of  English  Pro- 
testants, and  "Irishman"  a  member  of  that  colony. 

The  Protestants  were  soon  made  to  feel  that  they 
had  purchased  the  right  of  i)ersecuting  Catholics, 


1882  AND  ITS  MEMOKIES.  279 

at  the  price  of  tlieir  trade  and  their  liberties.  How- 
ever zealous  they  might  be  to  do  the  work  of  England 
in  Ireland,  since  they  dwelt  in  Ireland,  and  were  in  a 
sense  Irishmen,  they  should  not  expect  to  escape  scot- 
free  themselves.    Tliey  were  there  l^r  England's  pro- 
lit,  to  be  dealt  with  in  the  manner  most  advantageous 
to  English  interests,  and  they  should  learn  to  recognize 
the  fact.    xVt  that  time  the  trade  in  woolen  goods  was 
the  staple  industry  of  Ireland.    Its  mngnitude  soon 
aroused  the  jealousy  and  greed  of  the  English  manu- 
facturers; the  English  Parliament,  Lords  and  Com- 
mons, tlierefore  petitioned  William's  "m.ost  sncred 
majesty" — "That  your  mnjest}"  would  be  pleased,  in 
the  most  public  and  effectual  way  that  may  be,  to  de- 
clare to  all  your  subjects  of  Ireland  that  the  growth 
and  increase  of  the  woolen  manufacture  there  hath 
long  been,  and  will  be  ever^  looked  upon  with  great 
jealousy  by  all  your  subjects  of  this  kingdom,  and,  if 
not  timely  remedied,  may  occasion  very  strict  laws 
totally  to  prohibit  and  oppress  the  same."    The  King, 
whose  ''glorious,  pious,  and  immortal  memory"  is  still 
toasted  betimes  in  Ireland,  was  graciously  pleased  to 
do  wdiat  he  was  asked;  ''he  would  do  all  that  in  him 
lay  to  discourage  the  woolen  manufacture  of  Ireland;" 
All  export  of  Irish  woolens  to  foreign  countiies  was 
forbidden,  whilst  prohibitive  duties  rendered  England 
and  Wales  safe  from  the  enterprise  of  the  Irish  manu- 
facturer.   Every  other  branch  of  industry  that  was  of 
sufficient  value  to  catch  the  eye  of  the  greedy  British 
monopolist  was  treated  in  the  same  way.    Whilst  the 
colonists  w^ere  persecuting  the  Catholics,  England  was 
steadily  working  their  impoverishment.    Long  before 
then  the  descendants  of  English  settlers,  once  tainted 
with  Irish  ideas,  had  become  dangerous  enemies  to  Eng- 
lish rule;  thenceforth  there  should  be  no  snch  danger. 
The  necessary  consequence  of  the  ''royal  patronage" 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


thus  extended  to  Irish  manufactures,  was  that  the 
country  was  soon  j)lunged  in  misery.  Twenty  thousand 
operatives,  mill-hands,''  sought  in  other  countries  the 
right  to  toil  in  peace.  The  wretched  inhabitants  of  the 
Towns,  condemned  to  idleness,  had  no  money  to  buy 
bread;  the  farmers  had  no  market  for  their  corn. 
About  this  time  another  ''institution"  conies  into  pro- 
minent notice;  it  was  not  less  hateful  nor  less  tyrannical 
than  the  penal  code,  and  its  name  was  landlordism. 
The  lapse  of  a  century  and  a  half  has  changed  none  of 
its  worst  features,  as  witness  the  words  of  Dean  Swift: 
''Another  great  calamity  is  the  exorbitant  raising  of 
tile  rent  of  lands.  Upon  the  determination  of  all  leases 
made  before  the  year  1690,  a  gentleman  thinks  he  has 
but  indifferent ly  imiyroTed  Jiis  estate  if  he  has  only 
doubled  his  rent-roll.  Farms  are  screwed  up  to  a  rack- 
rent;  leases  granted  but  for  a  small  term  of  years; 
tenants  tied  down  to  hard  conditions,  and  discouraged 
from  cultivating  the  lands  they  occupy  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage, by  the  certainty  they  have  of  the  rent  being 
raised  on  the  expiration  of  their  lease  proportionably 
to  the  improvements  they  shall  make.  Thus  it  is  that 
honest  industry  is  restrained;  the  farmer  is  a  slave  to 
his  landlord;  and  it  is  well  if  he  can  cover  his  family 
with  a  coarse,  homespun  frieze."  As  the  English 
woolen  manufacturers  wanted  raw  wool,  the  Irisli  were 
permitted  to  export  it;  accordingly,  the  farmer  had  to 
make  way  for  improved  breeds  of  sheep,  as  in  later  times 
for  the  short-horns,  and  the  most  efficient  regiment  in 
.  the  English  service — the  Crowbar  Brigade — was  put  on 
a  war  footing.  It  has  never  since  been  disbanded. 
The  results  are  briefly  told.  Crime  followed  on  the 
heels  of  oppression;  the  gibbet-building  trade  alone 
was  active  for  a  while,  and  the  hangman's  office  was  no 
sinecure. 

As  the  '*  Irish  nation''  was  everything  but  Irish,  so 


1SS2  AND  ITS  MEMORIES. 


2S1 


the  colonial  Parliament,  or  Irisli  Parliament,  as  it  was 
called,  was  nor  even  colonial.  It  liad  not  the  power  to 
legislate  freely  and  independently,  as  the  statu le  of 
Poynings,  passed  as  far  back  as  the  year  1495,  secured 
the  initiative  of  all  legislation  to  the  English  Privy 
Council.  AVithout  the  consent  of  that  body  the  Irish 
Parliament  could  not  consider  a  bill/  Yet,  as  if  this 
bridle/'  as  Hallam  calls  it,  was  not  a  sufficient  check, 
a  stat-ute  was  passed  in  the  sixth  year  of  George  I.  de- 
clarins;  that  the  English  Parliament  always  had  a  riaht 
to  make  laws  for  Ireland  The  colonists,  great  as  was 
their  loyalty  to  the  English  King  and  the  Protestant 
interest,''  could  not  look  with  favorable  eyes  upon  their 
own  imx)overishment,  but  they  chose  to  be  an  armed 
garrison  in  a  hostile  country,  and  their  x}osition  could 
be  maintained  only  through  English  aid.  They  held 
the  Papists  by  the  throat  with  one  hand,  and  were 
powerless  to  combat  English  usurpation  with  the  other. 
Apart  from  all  external  influences,  the  Irish  Parliament 
contained  within  itself  elements  of  weakness  which 
alone  were  sufficient  to  paralyze  all  vigorous  effort. 
By  an  act  passed  in  the  year  1727,  Catholics  were 
entirely  disfranchised — they  had  previously  been  per- 
mitted to  vote — so  that  thenceforth  a  very  small  number 
of  electors  returned  the  county  and  borouirh  members 
to  Parliament.  It  was  an  age  of  corruption;  bribery 
had  been  dignified  into  a  science,  and  j)olitics  degraded 
to  a  trade.  The  ill-acquired  wealth  of  the  planters  had 
been  quickly  scfuanderedin  extravagant  ribtousness  and 
dissipation.  Timber  and  everything  else  that  would 
fetch  money  had  been  sold  off  their  lands,  and  their 
estates  afterwards  mortgaged  to  the  last  penny  of  their 
value,  that  the  expenses  of  cock-fighting,  of  claret- 
drinking,  of  fox-hunting,  and  of  priest-hunting  might 
be  decently  met.  When  no  more  money  was  to  be 
obtained,  these  "gentry,"  rather  than  forego  the 


282 


IRELAND;  PAST  AXD  PRKSEXT. 


gratification  of  the  peculiar  tastes  which  distinguished 
a  man.  of  quality,  ran  recklessly  into  debt.  One 
sole  resource  remained— to  sell  themselv^es;  and  they 
did  that.  The  nobles  sold  their  j^ati'onage  of  the 
counties  and  boroughs  to  the  only  bidder — the  govern- 
ment—and their  jy^'oter/es,  the  members,  made  their  own 
terms  in  turn.  Until  a  few  years  before  the  Volunteer 
movement  the  Irish  Parliaments  were  elected,  not  for 
a  specified  time,  but  for  the  life  of  the  King.  Thus, 
the  constituencies,  even  if  so  disposed,  were  unable  to 
interefere  with  the  betraval  of  their  interests  bv  their 

ft/ 

representatives.  Another  plan  adopted  by  the  govern- 
ment for  the  better  repressing  any  movement  of  indepen- 
dence, was  to  bestow  the  chief  posts  in  Church  and 
State  on  English  strangers,  who  would  be  certain  to 
uphold  what  was  called  the  ''English  interest."  The 
system  excited  the  most  intense  discontent  amongst  the 
X^eople,  whose  attitude  was  soon  turned  to  good  ac- 
count by  ^'patriots'' — gentlemen  whose  temporary  op- 
position to"  the  government  served  to  enhance  their 
ready-money  value.  Such  a  one  was  Boyle,  some  time 
Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  afterwards 
Earl  of  Shannon.  He  had  bitterly  opposed  the  govern- 
ment on  a  question  which  involved  the  principle  that 
the  Parliament  could  not  appropriate  the  public  money 
without  the  consent  of  the  English  king.  The  opposi- 
tion was  not  altogether  unsuccessful  and  Boyle  became 
a  leading  "  patriot."  At  that  time  Ireland  was  virtually 
raled  by  Primate  Stone,  an  imported  Englishman  sent 
over  to  do  the  king's  business,"  as  the  phrase  went. 
Between  the  chief  "patriot"  and  him  a  bitter  struggle 
coTnmenced,  the  strife  of  two  able  and  ambitious  men 
for  their  own  aims.  AVhat  manner  of  man  Stone  was, 
no  writer  can  dare  tell:  suffice  it.  that  he  combined 
within  himself  all  the  vices  of  a  bad  man  and  of  n  cor- 
vu2^t  statesman.    Had  Laud  all  the  worst  vices  of  the 


1882  AND  ITS  MEMORIES. 


283 


worst  Ca3sar,  Ms  government  would  have  been  pure 
and  liberal  in  contrast  with  that  of  Stone.  He.  was  an 
archbishop,  and  his  palace  reeked  with  the  nameless 
lK)llutions  of  Capre^e;  he  governed  the  country  by  the 
same  devices  which  Catiline  employed  to  further  his 
infamous  conspiracy.  There  was  no  room  for  two  such 
men  as  Boyle  and  him  in  the  country;  Boyle  was  trouble- 
some to  the  government,  and  might  become  dangerous; 
he  was  i)urcliased,  therefore.  His  price  was  an  earldom, 
a  pension  of  £2,000  a  year,  and  the  dismissal  of  Stone 
from  the  Privy  Council.  The  other  patriots"  followed 
their  leader,  and  thenceforward  strove  to  give  value  for 
their  annuities  by  helping  on  the  "  king's  business"  as 
best  they  could.  It  would  scarcely  be  too  much  to  say 
that  the  Irish  Parliament  was  a  national  mart  for  the 
sale  ol"  principles;  its  destruction  was  finally  accom- 
plished by  buying  out  the  vested  interests  of  the  mem- 
bers in  that  traffic. 

The  nation,  that  is,  the  Protestant  colony,  wasgrow- 
inc:  mo]-e  and  more  indignant  at  the  manner  in  wdiicli 
the  "English  interest"  was  maintained  by  the  ruin  of 
Ireland.  From  the  writings  of  Swift  and  Lucas  one 
may  learn  what  thoughts  were  working  in  the  minds 
of  the  peox>le.  Swift  was  entirely  colonial  in  his  sym- 
pathies, but  he  fiercely  nssailed  the  system  of  English 
government  in  Ireland  and  all  and  everybody  con- 
nected witli  it;  no  man  in  Ireland  was  more  popular 
with  both  Protestants  and  Catholics.  Lucas  insisted 
upon  the  right  of  the  Irish  Parliament  to  rule  Ireland, 
and  the  Parliament,  well  paid  to  "do  the  king's  busi- 
ness," voted  him  an  enemy  to  his  country.  He  had 
to  fly  the  kingdom,  but  his principlescould  not  be  out- 
lawed; they  were  taken  to  heart  by  the  people,  and  in 
dne  time  their  fruition  Avas  seen.  Strano-e  fruit,  in- 
deed;  such  a  crop  as  we  are  told  of  in  the  myth. 


284  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

wherein  Cadmus  sows  the  dragon's  teeth,  and  they 
spring  up  ready -armed  men. 

THE  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT — ITS  WHEN  AND  HOW. 


It  can  fairly  be  urged  by  any  apologist  for  English 
rule  in  Ireland,  that  England  did  not  treat  her  colonists 
there  in  a  much  worse  manner  than  she  did  elsewhere. 
If  in  any  place  on  the  wide  face  of  the  globe,  buccaneer- 
ing was  to  be  done,  and  weak  communities,  even  of 
the  Saxon  race,  to  be  robbed,  England  was  ever  ready 
wii  li  a  pretext  to  justify  and  an  army  to  execute  the 
plundering.    The  American  colonies  had  long  suffered 
from  the  exactions  of  the  mother -country.    Man  3^  of 
the  original  colonists  had  fled  from  England  to  avoid 
persecution,  others  had  been  driven  from  Ireland;  as 
in  the  case  of  the  Anglo-Irish,  they  were  taxed  and 
governed  entirely  in  the  English  interest.    The  sys- 
tem became  insupportable,  and  they  resolved  on  re- 
sistance.   The  King,  the  stupidest  and  least  vicious  of 
the  Georges,  would  hear  of  no  concession  to  their  de- 
mands; the  Colonists  stoodfirm;  the  government  tried 
repression,  and  Lexington  Fight  was  the  outcome. 
No  such    serious    opposition    had  been  expected 
in  England;  the  Americans  soon  showed  that,  having 
once  put  their  hands  to  the  plough,  they  would  not 
look  back;  no  paltr\^  concession  would  now  satisfy,  no 
thoughts  of  the  issue  deter  them.    In  Ireland  tiie 
struggle  was  watched  with  keen  anxiety  ,  the  people 
strongl}^  sympathized  with  the  patriotic  Colonists, 
whose  cause  was  so  nearlv  akin  to  their  own,  the 
government  therefore  resolved  to  set    the  two  op- 
pressed countries  at  enmity.    The  Irish   House  of 
Commons  was  asked  to  dispatch  4,000  scildiers  to 
America;  the  Court  party,  consisting  mostly  of  pur- 
chased members,  overcame  all  resistance,  and  the  men 


THE  VOLUJS^TEER  MOYIIMENT.  285 

were  sent.    It  was  proposed  to  replace  them  by  an 
equal  number  of  German  mercenaries,  but  all,  except 
the  most  thoroughly  corrupt  of  the  Irish  members,  op- 
posed the  measure;  they  themselves  would  defend  the 
country  against  foreign  invaders.    This  slight  show  of 
spirit  irritated  the  government,  it  could  not  be  borne 
that  these  Irish  Colonists  should  have  a  will  of  their 
own,  even  in  such  a  matter.    The  Parliament  was  at 
once  dissolved  by  the  English  Council,  as  not  being 
quite  slavish  and  corrupt  enough.    In  one  day  twelve 
peers  were  advanced  in  rank,  and  eighteen  new  peer- 
ages were  created,  all  for  thehonoring^  ennobling,  and 
bribing  of  powerful  ''undertakers,''  as  the  owners  of 
pocket-boroughs  were  called,  thus  a  thoroughly  sub- 
servient Parliament  was  secured  to  the  government. 
But  American  ideas  had  spread,  and  were  daily  spread- 
ing, too  far  and  too  fast  to  be  checked  by  any  votes  of 
a  dead  majority.    The  patriot  party  were  growing  im- 
patient, and  something  should  be  done  if  the  dangers 
that  were  gathering  so  fast  round  the  ''English  inter- 
est" were  to  be  averted.    Wherefore,  ''a  message  of 
peace  to  Ireland"  crossed  the  water;  a  bill  to  relieve 
the  Catholics  passed  both  Houses,  and  some  of  the 
commercial  restraints   were  slightlv  relaxed.  The 
former  was  represented  as  a  "boon"  conferred  upon 
the  Catholics  by  England  in  her  zeal  for  their  welfare; 
thus  it  was  hoped  that  their  grateful  support  would  be 
secured  to  the  Government  m  any  emergency.  The 
real  object  of  the  measure  was  to  promote  religious 
discord;  the  Protestant  ascendency  was  maintained  by 
England,  and  Protestants  called  upon  to  defend  it,  at 
the  same  time  that  the  Catholics  were  encouraged  to 
struggle  against  it.    A  better  feeling  had  grown  up 
between  Williamite  Protestant  and  Jacobite  Papist, 
which,  if  not  speedily  converted  again  to  tlie  old  ran- 
cor, might  prove  troublesome  to   the  system  which 


286  IRELAIS^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

ground  down  botli.*  The  Catholics  were  not  conciliated 
by  the  Relief  Bill;  it  made  them  all  the  more  conscious 
of  their  degradation.  They  had  been  stretched  upon 
the  rack  until  the^^  had  become  insensible  to  pain;  the 
slight  relaxation  of  the  cords  but  served  to  re-awaken 
them  to  a  keener  feeling  of  their  torture. 

In  the  month  of  August,  1778,  the  good  townsfolk  of 
Belfast  were  much  troubled  in  their  minds  by  some 
reports  that  hostile  privateers  had  been  seen  hovering 
off  the  coast,  it  was  presumed  with  no  good  intentions 
towards  them.  Once  before  they  had  narrowly  escaped 
from  Tliurot's  sea-rovers,  and  the  memory  of  that  in 
vasion  made  them  feel  acutelv  the  dancrer  in  which 
they  were  i^laced.  They  applied  to  the  Irish  govern- 
ment, asking  that  troops  should  be  sent  northwards  to 
protect  them  and  their  property;  the  government 
found  that  they  could  only  afford  "a  troop  or  two  of 
horse,  or  part  of  a  company  of  invalids,"  to  such  straits 
had  they  been  reduced  by  the  American  war.  In  high 
wrath  the  Belfast  men  refused  the  help  of  the  crippled 
veterans,  and  resolved  to  protect  themselves  as  best 
they  could.  They  at  once  formed  volunteer  companies; 
the  example  was  speedily  followed  in  other  places,  and 
in  a  few  months  the  country  was  inarms.  The  "Eng- 
lish interest"  and  the  government  were  thoroughly 
frightened;  but,  as  they  dared  not  oppose  the  people 
in  their  present  temper,  they  hid  their  fears  and  feigned 
satisfaction.  They  were  as  powerless  to  resist  the  armed 
citizen- soldiers  as  they  would  have  been  to  cope  with 
an  invading  army,  and  they  could  only  look  on  inertly 
whilst  the  people  were  flocking  to  the  volunteer  stand- 
ards, being  equipped  and  drilled  into  discipline,  and 
holding  their  military  celebrations.  The  organization 
spread  with  the  speed  and  strength  of  a  forest  fire. 
Not  to  be  a  Volunteer  was  to  be  of  no  account.  With 
angry  amazement,    the   government  saw   ilie  very 


THE  VOLUNTEER  MOA^EMENT. 


287 


Catholics,  who  liitlierto  had  breathed  only  by  con- 
nivance, hastening  to  form  their  comx)anies.  Terrified 
at  the  idea  that  religious  hatreds  should  perish  amongst 
Irishmen,  they  at  once  interfered  to  procure  the  exclu- 
sion of  the  Papists."  The  Catholics  of  Limerick, 
thus  prevented  from  bearing  arms,  subscribed  £800  to 
the  Volunteer  treasury;  the  Volunteers  passed  resolu- 
tions of  a  decided  tone  in  favor  of  their  oppressed 
fellow-countrymen,  and  thenceforward  Catholic  and 
Protestant  stepped  side  by  side  in  the  ranks  of  the 
popular  army.  In  that  moment  the  English  colony 
disappears  from  our  history,  and  the  Irish  nation, 
drilled  and  armed  for  the  assertion  of  its  national 
rights,  stands  in  martial  array  befure  us. 

The  tirst  task  which  the  Volunteers  set  themselves 
was  the  winning  of  ''Free  Trade."  The  expression 
had  then  a  vastly  different  significance  frc  m  that  which 
political  economists  now  attach  to  it.  It  "did  not 
mean  that  exports  and  imports  should  be  free  of  all 
duty  to  the  state,  but  only  that  the  fact  of  import  or 
export  itself  should  not  be  restrained  by  foreign  laws, 
and  that  the  duties  to  be  derived  from  it  should  be  im- 
posed by  Ireland's  own  Parliament,  and  in  the  sole 
interest  of  Ireland  herself."  The  English  Parliament, 
thoroughly  imbued  with  the  avaricious  spirit  of  British 
commerce,  refused  to  remove  the  crushing  restrictions 
imposed  upon  the  Irish  manufacturer.  The  Volunteers, 
relying  upon  the  support  of  the  country,  undertook  to 
redress  these  grievances  in  a  summary  manner.  They 
adopted  a  system  of  exclusive  dealing;  in  other  words, 
"boycotted"  all  English-made  goods  and  all  importers 
of  them.  The  measure  was  defensible  on  many  grounds. 
No  relief  was  to  be  obtained  from  the  English  Parlia- 
ment; the  Irish  Parliament  was  in  the  fetters  of  the 
English  Privy  Council;  the  Irish  people,  therefore, 
legislated  for  themselves.    For  which  atrocious  conduct 


23S 


IRELAND,  PAST  Al^D  PRESENT. 


tbe  moral  English  press  vilified  them  as  savages,  and 
tlireatened  them  as  criminals;  Irish  trade  revived  none 
the  less  surely.  It  was  plain  that  the  first  struggle  be- 
tween the  Yolunteers  and  the  government  was  imminent, 
and  througiiout  the  country  the  opening  of  Parliament 
for  the  session  of  1779-80  was  awaited  with  feverish 
anxiety.  The  Parliament  met,  and  the  first  blow  was 
at  once  struck  by  Grattan.  The  speech  of  the  Lord- 
Lieutenant  referred  vaguely  to  some  good  intentions  of 
the  King,  and  contained  the  amount  of  obscure  promis- 
ing, diplomatic  falsehood,  and  frivolous  advice  usual 
in  Viceregal  utterances  ;  the  address  in  reply  moved 
by  a  government  hack,  was  suitably  cringing;  Grattan 
moved  an  amendment.  It  told  the  King  in  i^lain  words 
that  the  only  way  to  relieve  Irislt  misery  was  "  to  open 
a  free  export  trade,  and  let  yonr  Irish  subjects  enjoy 
their  natural  birthrights."  The  government  were  dis- 
mayed; they  were  stricken  with  rage  and  terror  when 
Hussey  Burgh,  the  prime  Serjeant,  and,  therefore,  one 
of  their  officials,  rose  to  declare  that  he  w^ould  sacrifice 
his  high  position  rather  than  hide  his  principles  or 
consent  to  the  oppression  of  the  people,  that  strong 
statement  of  right  rather  than  entreaty  for  justice  was 
needed,  and  that  he  would  ask  Grattan  to  substitute 
for  his  amendment  these  words — "That  it  is  not  by 
temporary  expedients  that  this  nation  is  now  to  be 
saved  from  impending  ruin."  The  government  could 
not  obtain  a  single  vote  in  opposition  to  the  stronger 
amendment;  corruption  was  scorched  in  the  fire  of  that 
fierce  eloquence.  Outside  the  House  the  Volunteers 
were  drawn  up  in  grim  array,  on  the  mouths  of  their 

cannon  hung  the  motto,  "Free Trade,  or  ."  There 

was  terror  in  the  Castle,  and  yet  the  government  made 
one  other  vain  attempt  to  resist  the  people,  incurring 
thereby  another  defeat.  They  asked  the  House  to  vote 
supplies  for  two  years;  the  Volunteers  instructed  their 


THE  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT. 


289 


adherents  to  vote  them  for  not  longer  than  six  months; 
after  a  brilliant  debate  the  patriots  triumphed.  Then 
it  came  to  be  seen  in  England  that  concession  to  the 
Irish  demands  was  essential  to  the  preservation  of  the 
empire;  in  that  same  moment  it  was  recognized  that 
these  demands  were  just.  Lord  North  forgot  all  his 
former  arguments,  swaHowed  his  former  principles,  and 
forthwith  introduced  a  Free  Trade  Bill  conceding  to 
Ireland  all  that  the  Volunteers  had  claimed.  Perhaps 
these  placard-bearing  cannon  of  Napper  Tandy's  com- 
pany had  taught  his  lordsliij)  some  new  lessons  in 
political  economy. 

The  people  rejoiced  at  the  triiimpli  of  their  prin- 
ciples, but  it  was  with  a  grave  and  sober  joy  in  which 
no  insane  gratitude  towards  England  was  mingled. 
They  took  their  free  trade,  not  as  a  gift  from  English 
power  and  bounty,  but  as  a  right  wrung  from  a  weak- 
ened tyranny.  So  long  as  England  controlled  the 
making  of  Irish  laws  there  could  be  no  security  for 
the  permanency  of  any  concessions,  for  the  rights  re- 
si)ected  by  her  in  the  hour  of  weakness  might  be 
trampled  upon  in  the  first  moment  of  recovered 
strength.    There  was  need  then  of  a  free  Parliament; 

and  they  Avould  win  it  "  or  Grat  tan  was  still  the 

unchallenged  leader  of  the  patriotic  pari  y,  and  here- 
solved  to  at  once  commence,  in  stern  earnest,  the  bat- 
tle of  Parliamentary  liberty.  On  the  lOtli  April,  1780,. 
he  moved  his  Declaration  of  Higlit,  setting  forth  that 
no  ])ower  other  than  the  King,  Lords,  and  Commons 
of  Ireland  could  make  laws  to  bind  this  country.  It 
was  a  challenge  and  a  defiance  to  England.  The  gov-^ 
ernment  did  not  venture  to  deny  the  i)rin('iples  of  the 
Declaration,  nor  yet  Avonld  it  accept  them;  the  ques- 
tion was  evaded  by  a  quibble,  and  the  motion  was  not; 
put  to  the  House.  Tiie  people  saw  that  their  surest 
hope  was  in  their  organization,  which  they  now  labored 


« 

290 


IRELAXDj  PAST  AND  PEESENT. 


zealously  to  perfect.  All  the  requirements  for  a  cam- 
paign were  provided,  while  constant  drilling  and  fre- 
quent reviews  improved  their  soldierly  bearing.  A 
commander  in-chief  was  chosen,  and  the  man  appointed 
to  that  responsible  position  was  James  Caulheld,  Earl 
of  Charlemont,.  than  whom  no  honester  and  no  more 
short-sighted  patriot  then  lived  in  Ireland.  The  govern- 
ment, meanwhile,  were  not  idle.  They  w^ere  lavish  in 
their  bribes,  and  when  the  Commons  had  been 
sufficiently  corrupted,  they  asked  that  generous  supplies 
should  be  voted,  that  thus  they  might  have  tiie  where 
withal  to  bribe  still  more  freely.  Grattan  boldly 
determined  to  a2)peal  from  that  hireling  Parliament  to 
the  country,  thus  rendering  the  government  precautions 
useless. 

It  was  on  the  loth  of  February,  1782,  that  the  repre- 
sentatives of  thirty  thousand  armed  men  of  Ulster  met 
in  the  old  parish  church  of  Dungannon,  commissioned 
by  their  resj^ective  corps  to  take  such  steps  as  would 
best*  secure  the  recognition  of  their  rights  to  the  Irish 
people.  Either  of  two  courses  lay  open  to  the  dele- 
'  gates — to  sever  the  connection  wdth  England,  as 
America  had  done,  or,  with  the  lessons  of  English 
perfidy  in  the  i)U.st  before  their  eyes,  to  trust  again  in 
English  faith.  Grattan  wished  to  maintain  the  "con- 
nection," if  possible.  Charlemont  would  have  been 
true  to  it  at  any  cost,  and  tlie  counsels  of  the  more 
moderate  prevailed  at  the  convention.  Nevertheless, 
the  resolutions  adopted  by  the  delegates  had  a  revolu- 
Tjonary  ring  in  them  that  boded  ill  to  a  policy  of.  tem- 
porizing or  resistance  by  the  government.  Here  are 
some  of  them: 

^'Jlesoloed,  unanimously — That  a  citizen  by  learning 
the  use  of  arms  does  not  abandon  any  of  his  civil 
rights." 


THE  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT. 


291 


Resolmd^  unanimously — That  a  claim  of  anybody 
of  men,  other  than  the  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  of 
Ireland,  to  make  laws  to  bincl  this  kingdom,  is  uncon- 
stitutional, illegal,  and  a  grievance." 

Jtesoloed — with  two  dissentinir  voices  onlv  to  this 
and  the  fullowing  resolution — That  we  hold  the  right 
of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion  to  be  equally 
sacred  in  others  as  ourselves." 

,  liesoloed^  therefore,  That  as  men  and  as  Irishmen, 
as  Ciiristians  and  as  Protestants,  we  rejoice  in  the  re- 
laxation of  the  penal  laws  against  our  Roman  Catholic 
fellow-subjects,  and  that  we  conceive  the  measure  to 
be  fraught  with  the  happiest  consequences  to  the  union 
and  prosperity  oL'  the  inhabitants  of  Ireland." 

The  resolutions  were  regarded  as  a  declaration  of 
war,  with  tlie  alternative  of  concession.  Neither  Lord 
North,  who  was  still  at  the  head  of  the  English  ministi  y, 
nor  the  Irish  government  would  hear  of  concession; 
but  before  tlie  Volunteers  were  forced  into  revolution, 
the  worst  of  England's  man}^  bad  statesmen  Avas  driven 
from  power,  crushed  and  dishonored.  A  Whig 
adnjinistration,  with  the  usual  ^'liberal  views,"  suc- 
ceeded, and  an  ''ameliorative  Viceroy,"  the  Duke  of 
Portland,  came  to  Ireland  with  a cut-and-dry  policy  of 
conciliation.  All  the  resources  of  Whig  diplomacy 
were  tried,  in  order  to  divert  Grattan  from  his  purpose. 
Fox  wrote  to  his  "old  and  esteemed  friend,  the  good 
Earl  of  Charleniont,"  begging  him  to  delay  action,  if 
onh^  for  three  weeks.  But  Grattan  would  not  pause 
for  a  moment,  and  Cliarlemont  was  firm.  The  patience 
of  the  hundred  thousand  soldiers  whom  he  commanded 
was  already  too  sorely  tried;  they  would  have  no 
further  promising  and  no  more  delays.  Words  of 
honeyed  sweetness  and  graceful  comx)limenis  were  wasted  ' 
on  muskets  and  artillery;  England  should  yield  to 
Ireland  her  rights  or  take  the  consequence — '-speedy 


292 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PKDSEXT. 


revolution."  She  yielded,  and  with  the  best  possible 
simulation  of  good  grace. 

Thus  far  the  history  of  the  Volunteers  is  a  record  cl 
success;  in  a  few  short  years  they  had  won  commercinl 
and  political  freedom  for  their  country;  all  the  glujy 
was  evanescent,  and  the  tale  of  disunion  and  disaster 
lias  now  to  be  told.  In  the  moment  of  triumph,  when 
all  seemed  won,  dissension  broke  out  among  the 
l^opular  leaders,  and  theliame  was  fanned  by  England; 
the  conflicting  ambitions  of  some,  the  timidity  and 
courtlv  moderation  of  others,  sacrificed  all  that  had 
been  gained.  Grattan  found  a  rival  in  Flood;  the 
former  was  a  i>ure  politician  and  a  great  patriot,  the 
latter  a  wise  senator  and  a  great  statesman.  They 
quarreled  on  a  question  of  principle,  but  princii)les 
wwe  soon  forgotten  in  the  heat  of  personal  contro- 
versy. 

The  Irish  Parliament  had  repealed  Poynings's  law; 
the  English  Parliament  had  repealed  the  obnoxious 
statute  6  George  I.,  which  asserted  tlierightof  England 
to  legislate  for  Ireland.  Grattan  was  contented  with 
this  simple  repeal;  Flood  insisted  that  England  should 
formally  renounce  forever  ^wy  such  right.  It  must  be 
said  that  Flood  advocated  the  wiser  course,  but  it  is 
not. easy  to  understand  how  its  adoption  would  have 
material! V  altered  the  future  destinies  of  the  countrv. 
Irish  liberty  was  the  child  of  aims;  in  tlie  spirit  of  the 
Volunteers  lay  its  best  security,  and  when  that  spirit 
passed  away,  and  the  muskets  fell  from  nerveless  hands, 
parchments  would  have  been  of  little  avail  against 
English  force  and  English  fraud.  Again,  the  work  of 
freeing  the  Irish  Parliament  had  not  been  finished.  It 
•  is  true  that  En2:land  could  no  lonc^er  control  it  directly, 
but  it  still  remained  entirely  dependent  upon  the  Eng- 
lish interest  here.    Ic  was  the  old  corrupt  Parliament, 


THE  VOLUXTEER  MOVEMENT. 


293 


and  corruption  was  as  effective  a  resource  of  state- 
ri*nft  as  ever.  Flood  saw  that  if  the  Parliament  was  to 
be  saved  from  destruction  the  representation  should  be 
refuiiiied.  Unfortunately,  the  quarrel  between  him 
and  Grattan  had  deepened  into  personal  hostility,  and 
they  would  not  work  in  union.  Although  reform  alone 
could  save  the  constitution  of  '82,  Grattan  refused  to 
advance;  Flood  refused  to  stand  still.  The  Volunteers 
themselves  had  impressed  upon  their  leaders  that  much 
was  vet  to  be  done;  thev  had  demanded  reform  at  their 
meetings  in  every  part  of  Ireland,  and  they  were  still  in 
arms,  a  hundred  thousand  strong,  resolved  to  follow 
their  leaders,  if  only  they  were  led.  As  in  the  previous 
year,  it  was  resolved  to  hold  jn-ovincial  assemblies  of 
the  Volunteers,  and  at  these  meetings  it  was  decided 
that  a  great  National  Conventiori  should  be  held  in 
Dublin.  Amidst  the  hush  of  public  expectation,  one 
hundred  and  sixtv  delesrates  met  at  the  Roval  Ex- 
change  on  the  lOrli  Xovember,  17S3,  and,  having  chosen 
Charlemont  as  chairman,  adjourned  to  the  Rotunda. 
It  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  in  all  Ireland  a  man 
less  suited  to  the  position  of  president  of  the  conven- 
tion than  was  Charlemont.  He  would  not  be  com- 
manded, and  he  was  too  feeble  to  control;  his  high 
position  and  social  graces  had  won  him  many  adherents, 
but  it  is  not  by  soft-handed  courtesy  that  stern  dangers 
may  be  averted.  He  had  fallen  into  the  hands  of  the 
Court  party,  and  many  of  his  friends  were  in  secret  un- 
derstanding with  the  government;  and,  though  no 
breath  of  suspicion  taints  his  honor,  he  surrendered 
himself  without  knowing  it  to  the  objects  of  the  ad- 
ministration. Of  a  different  mould  was  the  Bishop  of 
Derry,  the  demagogue  Earl  of  Bristol,  whose  ambition 
an  Irish  mitreand  an  English  coronet  could  not  satisfy. 
A  bold  and  resolute  man.  he  was  unstained  bv  the 
bigotr\'  which  disgraced  Flood  and  Charlemont. 


294  IRELATs'D,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 

Ill  conjaction  with  the  former,  he  drew  up  the 
of  reform,  which  was  approved  by  the  Convention.  A 
bill  founded  on  its  principles  was  introduced  into  Par- 
liament by  Flood,  and  a  struggle,  of  which  the  ultimate 
issue  was  national  life  or  deaih,  commenced  within 
that  assembly.  The  measure  was  rejected,  those  slavish 
creatures  of  the  administration  would  maintain  their 
'•'just  rights  and  privileges''  against  all  encroachments; 
and  thnt,  too^  in  the  name  of  liberty!    What  these 
rights  and  privileges  were  has  already  been  told;  the 
principle  was  the  right  to  sell  their  country  and 
.beti-av  all  who  trusted  in  them.    It  was  a  valuable 
right,  and  worth  struggling  for;  no  ''patriot  '  might 
be  bought  in  those  davs  for  an  invitation  to  a  countess's 
garden  party  and  a  second-class  clerkship  in  a  colony, 
as  a  glance  at  the  Black  List  will  show     Intense  was 
the  indignation  of  the  Volunteers;   they  had  been 
treated  with  contempt  and  defiance;  the  gauntlet  had 
been  thrown  down     Would  they  pick  it  up  ?  Either 
Parliament  or  the}^  should  submit,  which  would  it  be? 
They  themselves  were  not  to  decide.    Charlemont  was 
frightened;   he  hastily  consulted  with   some  other 
'•moderates";  craven  counsels,  not  manly  boldness, 
marked  the  meeting,   the  ''public  peace"  and  the 
"  connection"  should  be  maintained  at  all  hazards,  and 
the  upshot  was  that  the  Convention  was  dissolved  by 
a  disgraceful  ruse.    So  true  is  it  that  feebleness  is  tlie 
worst  crime  in  a  popular  leader.    There  was  need  of 
'•an  hour  ot  Cromwell'"  to  clear  out  that  den  of  iniquity 
in  College  Green,  need  of  men  who  Avould  not  falter  in 
their  work,  nor  pause  for  political  etiquette;  no  need 
whatever  of  this  dainty-palmed  weakness  and  elegant 
incapacity.    The  binding  principle  which  had  held  the 
A'olunteers  so  firmly  together  was  unloosed;  doubts, 
suspicions,  and  strange  fears  filled  their  minds;  their 
l^ower  was  gone — their  strength  broken.    They  might 


THE  VOLUNTEER  MOVEMENT. 


295 


beat  to  arms  and  pass  resolutions;  but  the  drum  beats 
and  the  eloquence  was  so  much  noise  unheeded  by  the 
government  and  their  other  foes.  The  organizaitlon 
lived  on  for  some  years  in  a  manner;  isolated  corps  re- 
mained undisbanded;  but  the  National  Army  of  Ireland 
had  passed  away,  forever — perhaps. 

Thus  the  great  struggle  ended  in  the  triumph  of  cor- 
ruption and  of  the  government.  Politics  stagnated 
for  a  time,  and  to  all  outer  seeming  the  Volunteer  spirit 
of  the  first  few  glorious  years  had  been  lulled  to  sleep 
and  shorn  of  its  vigor.  All  the  old  resources  of 
English  rule  were  jjut  in  action  as  they  never  had  been 
before,  and  now  there  was  no  man  and  no  principle  to 
oppose  them  with  effect.  Bribery  was  an  avowed 
principle  of  government,  as  jury-packing  was  in  later 
times,  and  as  trial  without  jury  is  in  our  own  day.  Tlie 
dead  religious  feuds  were  revived,  that  so,  the  old  weak- 
ness ensuing,  "the  cause  of  law  and  order"  might  be 
strengthened.  It  was  all  done  to  an  end,  a  long  time 
looked  forward  toby  the.  "English  interest";  plotted 
for  and  schemed  about  with  patient  care  and  steady 
purpose — the  Union.  All  the  Avhile  the  constitution- 
alists and  loyalists  and  lawyerlings  of  the  Whig  Club 
were  peddling  about  petty  grievances,  talking  much 
ameliorative  nonsense,  and  uttering  most  hollow  cant, 
expressive  of  devotion  to  the  sacred  stupidity  of 
monarchy.  Amongst  them  was  one  young  law^-er,  who 
looked  on  matters  in  a  different  light  from  those  around 
him.  He  saw  that  something  more  than  talk  was 
needed  if  Ireland  was  to  be  saved  from  the  fate  which 
an  aristocracy  corrupted  by  foreign  gold,  a  com- 
monalty maddened  by  persecution,  and  a  jieople 
distracted  by  their  divisions,  should  of  necessity  bring 
upon  the  country.  lie  resolved  to  bind  all  Irishmen 
together  in  the  bonds  of  brotherhood;  and  thus  arose 
the  "United  Irishmen"  society.    The  history  of  that 


296 


IRELA^'^),  PAST  AXD  PEESE^'T. 


great  organization  is  not  now  to  be  told ;  it  may  be 
briefly  summed  up.  They  failed,  but  their  failure  was 
heroic.  Before  foreign  rule  had  finally  clenched  its 
gripe  ui^on  the  land,  they  stood  up  to  die,  and  died. 
They  gave  their  lives,  and  all  that  endeared  them  to 
life,  that  their  countr3nnen  might  be  free,  or,  failing  that, 
be  prepared  to  do  as  they  did ;  and  since  the  headless 
trunk  was- borne  from  Thomas  Street  to  an  unhonored 
grave,  the  Irish  nationalist  and  the  Irish  provincialist — 
Whig,  West  Briton,  or  whatever  he  may  be— stand  apart 
in  cur  history,  separated  by  a  river  of  blood  and 
tears. 

How  do  we  now  celebrate  the  birth  of  our  nation  ? 
With  drum-beating  and  marching,  with  flaunting  of 
gay  flags  and  speeching — all  by  the  tacit  permission  of 
an  English  lord,  representing  the  power  against  which 
our  fathers  rose  a  hundred  years  a^o.  Shall  it  be  always 
thus  ?  Must  no''  be  ever  the  answer  to  the  question  of 
the  fabled  warrior,  sleeping  in  that  cavern  of  old 
Inishowen,  ''Is  the  time  yet'corae?"  How  long  may 
the  world,  pointing  to  us,  say,  Woe  to  the  land  on 
whose  judgment-seat  a  stranger  sits — at  whose  gates  a 
stranger  watches 

THE  EXIIIBITIOX  AND  o'cOXXELL'S  MONUAIEXT. 

The  celebration  of  the  loth  of  August,  1882,  has  re- 
alized the  best  that  was  dreamed  of  it  and  more.  Its 
triumph  was  simply  peerless.  Not  one  note  of  discord 
or  shadow  of  unpleasantness  crossed  it.  Xot  only  in  this 
respect,  but  in  size  and  pageantry,  it  excelled  eyen  the 
proportions  of  the  O'Connell  Centenary.  Miles  and 
miles  of  streets  were  populated  with  immeasurable 
crowds,  any  one  of  which  would  have  made  a  mass- 
meeting.  Bands  beyond  nuinber;  a  procession  that 
took  two  hours  to  pass  at  a  quick  march;  streets  gar- 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION. 


297 


landed  from  end  to  end  with  national  colors;  windows 
crowded  with  a  fair  garrison  of  smiling  women;  one  huge 
furnace  of  enthusiasm,  of  life  and  gayety;  no  trace  of 
disorder  that  could  employ  the  baton  of  a  policemen; 
not  to  talk  of  the  guns  of  tlie  huge  army  massed  in  the 
city  barrack-yards;  weather  sunshiny  enough  to  com- 
municate its  genial  influence  and  showery  enough  to 
make  peo|)le  grateful  that  the  showers  were  so  transient; 
nothing  was  missing  that  could  give  dignity,  joy,  or 
greatness  to  a  nation's  holiday. 

There  were  streets  like  Capel  Street,  and  High  Street, 
and  Tliomas  Street,  where  every  house,  without  ex- 
ception, was  dressed  in  fluttering  banners.  There  were 
others — among  which  Grafton  Street,  Nassau  Street, 
and  Westmoreland  Street  had  an  evil  preeminence — 
where  a  Queen's  birthday  would  have  been  more 
honored.  The  Bank  of  Ireland  floated  not  one  yard  of 
bunting  in  sympathy  with  the  nation  whose  heart  was 
throbbing  around  its  sacred  walls.  Trinity  College  was 
rigidly  sealed  up.  A  few  persons  who  made  a  stealthy 
,'ippearance  at  one  of  the  windows  had  a  guilty  look, 
as  of  folk  who  had  disobeyed  the  word  of  command. 
The  main  entrance  was  closed.  A  printed  notice  in- 
formed whom  it  might  concern  that  admission  could 
only  be  had  through  a  back  door  in  Nassau  Street. 
Numbers  of  the  court  milliners  and  folk  of  that  ilk 
showed  their  impotent  spite  by  banishing  every  smallest 
emblem  of  rejoicing  from  their  house-fronts.  And  yet 
nothing  was  more  wonderful  in  the  day's  success  than 
the  warmth  with  which  the  procession  was  greeted  in 
the  very  districts,  and  from  the  very  houses,  that  are 
,  supposed  to  be  the  fortresses  of  Castle  gentility.  In 
Dawson  Street,  for  example,  clouds  of  handkerchiefs 
were  waved  from  nearly  every  window.  Scarcely  a 
liouse  there,  or  in  Nassau  Street,  or  lower  Grafton 
Street,  or  College  Green,  or  Dame  Street,  but  had  some 


293 


IKELAXD,   PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


friendly  greeting — some  cheer  from  the  roof,  some 
sno'.v-wliite  token  from  tlie  windows — that  showed 
liow  marvelonsly  the  spirit  of  popuh\r  education  had 
spread  even  into  the  i^urlieus  of  the  Castle  of  late. 
The  National  Bank  lloated  its  green  flag  as  well  as  its 
raon2:L'el  imitation  of  the  Union  Jaclv.  The  Hibernian 
Eank  floated  an  undeniable*  green  flag.  Even  without 
the  deafening  accompaniment  of  cheers  which  re- 
sounded along  the  route  of  the  i^rocession  like  a  mag- 
nificent organ-voice,  tlie  enthusiasm  in  the  very  gen- 
teelest  houses  would  never  have  led  a  stranger  to 
suppose  he  was  passing  through  neighborhoods  where, 
a  few  years  ago,  a  national  emblem  would  have  been  spat 
upon  and  trampled.  Either  the  Castle  shopkeepers 
are  giving  up  the  ghost,  or  have  friends  or  retainers 
who  in  their  absence  do  not  hesitate  to  shout  their 
acclamations  to  patriots  of  as  decided  a  hue  as  Parnell 
or  Davit t. 

But  it  was,  of  course,  among  the  homes  of  the 
people  that  the  decorations  w^ere  the  most  numerous 
as  well  as  the  most  tastefuL  At  the  verv  Castle  crates 
there  began  lines  of  flags  wdi-ich  spread  from  house  to 
house  for  the  whole  length  of  High  Street,  Thomas 
Street,  and  James's  Street — sometimes  in  bright-colored 
clusters,  at  other  times  in  gay  arches  spanning  the 
thoroughfare,  blended  with  national  devices  in  flowers 
and  evergreens. 

One  feature  of  the  street  ornamentation  was  si^'nifi- 
cant.  All  the  flags  of  the  universe,  it  seemed,  were 
afloat  except  the  flag  of  England.  The  Irish  and  the 
American  colors  were,  of  course,  the  prime  favorites. 
They  drooped  together  from  a  thousand  Avindows.  The 
French  tricolor  ran  next  in  favor.  Failing  these, 
violets,  indigoes,  blues,  greens,  yellows,  and  oranges 
of  unknown  nationalities  were  flung  to  the  breeze — all 
that  hadn't  the  blooded  stamp  of  England  upon  them. 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION.  299 

(There  were  a  few  disguised  Union  Jacks,  but  tLe 
owners  seemed  always  to  Jabor  under  the  necessity  of 
making  them  as  unlike  Union  Jacks  as  possible.  The 
consequence  was  a  very  unsatisfactory  compromise.  In 
one  case  the  red  and  blue  crossed  square  at  the  ensign 
was  retained.    But  the  rest  of  the  Hag  was  a  dirty 
white,  with  a  light  band  of  red  across  it.    In  another 
case— indeed  over  the  Exhibition  building  itself— a  still 
more  uncomely  transformation  was  attempted.  There- 
suit  was  a  very  ill  cross  between  an  Irish,  an  English, 
and  an  American  banner — with  a  green  ground,  a  Mavor 
of  the  Union  Jack,  and  a  bare  suggestion  of  stripes  and 
stars.    The  cases  in  which  even  the  attempt  was  made, 
however,  might  have  been  counted  upon  one's  fingers. 
The  vast  majority  of  those  who  displayed  flags  took  no 
pains  to  conceal  that  there  is  no  flag  on  earth  in  which 
they  are  less  tempted  to  invest  than  that  which  floats 
from  the  Castle  flagstaff.    The  extent  to  which  the 
American  flag  was  displayed  was  a  subject  of  general 
observation,  and  wherever  it  was  displaj'ed,  it  was 
hailed  with  enthusiasm  hardly  less  fervid  than  the  im- 
mortal firreen.    I  mav  as  well  note  here  as  elsewhere 
that  one  of  the  most  remarkable  of  the  street  decora- 
tions was  that  outside  the  Ladies'  Land  League  ofiices. 
A  blood-red  flag  with  the  crescent  and  star  would  have 
been  recognized  as  the  Egyptian  colors  even  without 
the  explanatory  description,  "Arabi,"  and  a  tricolor 
bore  the  meaning  legend,  ''Remember  the  Boers." 

By  nine  o'clock  the  whole  city  was  in  movement 
towards  the  rendezvous.  Bands  from  every  corner  of 
the  island;  bands  in  all  conceivable  uniforms;  bands 
hi  f^ay  green-and  white  Emmet  uniforms,  with  snow- 
wliire  plumes;  bands  in  blue  and  gold;  bands  as  mag- 
nificently trained  as  the  Cork  Butter  Exchange  and 
Barrack  Street  Bands,  and  bands  of  youngsters  with 
unambitious  fifes,  poured  along  by  tw^enty  different 


300 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


avenues,  mingled  with  battalions  of  trades  under  their 
gorgeous  banners,  and  contingents  of  Foresters  in  their 
resplendent  dress.  The  arrangements  were  admirable. 
Each  body  fell  into  its  appointed  x^lace  like  clock- worlv. 
There  was  no  confusion.  Everv  man  and  bodv  knew 
its  ground  and  touk  ic  up.  You  will  find  underneath 
every  detail  that  industry  could  gather  as  to  the  mam- 
moth line  that  by  halt'-past  nine  o'clock  covered  the 
four  sides  of  Stei^heu's  Green,  and  spread  far  into  every 
avenue  that  opens  upon  it.  There  w^as  scarcely'  a  town 
in  Ireland  unrepresented — if  not  by  its  Town  Commis- 
sioners (and  fche\-  mustered  in  wonderful  strength)  by 
its  trades  or  band.  The  trades  procession  proper  was, 
perhaps,  the  greatest  uj)on  record.  Trades  walked 
that  for  many  a  languishing  year  never  plucked  up 
courage  to  show  their  diminished  heads  in  public. 
Under  the  sunny  inhuence  of  the  national  revival, 
trades  that  were  almost  forgotton  gave  the  public  a 
sturdy  reminder  of  their  existence.  Of  the  appearance 
of  these  bodies,  it;  is  hard  to  speak  without  the  sus- 
picion of  hyberbole.  They  were  men  fit  to  be  the 
standard-bearers  in  the  struggle  for  the  revival  of  Irish 
trade.  Their  i^hyfiique.  their  dress,  their  whole  ap- 
pearance, their  scarves  and  regalia,  their  beautiful 
banners,  were  all  worthy  of  the  part  the  trades  of  Ire- 
land are  now  summoned  to  play  in  vitalizing  Irish  in- 
dustries. 

Hitherto  the  pedestrian  part  of  processions  have  gone 
first,  and  the  dignitaries  in  the  carriages  have  come 
last.  This  time  the  order  of  precedence  was  reversed, 
in  order  that  the  personages  wdio  were  to  figure  in  the 
unveilnient  of  the  O'Connell  Monunxent  might  be  able 
to  get  to  their  places  without  being  wedged  into  an  in- 
extricable mass  of  men.  Hence,  after  the  advanced 
guard  of  Quay  laborers,  the  line  of  carriages  com- 
menced at  once  with  those  containing  the  O'Connell 


THE  DUBLIX  EXIIIBITIOIS".  301 

familv  and  the  Statue  Committee,  in  whom  it  mnst  in 
candor  be  said  the  public  showed  no  very  violent  in- 
terest. Then  came  the  Lord  Mayor's  procession  in 
state.  Lord  Mayor  Dawson  was  greeted  everywhere  as 
cordially  as  his  maguificent  share  in  the  success  of  the 
Exhibition  richly  deserved.  After  the  members  of  the 
Dublin  Corporation  (who  wore  their  robes  in  their  car- 
riages) there  followed  a  long  line  of  carriages,  contain- 
ing the  bishops  and  clergy,  and  the  provincial  mayors 
and  deputations,  whose  names  I  append  below.  Every 
city  and  almost  every  town  in  Ireland  that  has  Com- 
missioners to  send  sent  them. 

The  unveiling  of  the  O'Connell  Monument  was  simj^le. 
The  Lord  Mayor,  the  Hon.  Charles  Dawson,  pulled  a 
string  which  unloosed  the  drapery  from  it,  and  a  shout 
went  up  from  the  assembled  thousands.  He  made  a 
speech,  and  was  followed  by  the  Hon.  Charles  Stewart 
Parnell,  M  P.,  the  High  Sheriff,  Edward  Dwyer  Gray, 
M.  P.,  John  Dillon,  M.  P.,  and  others. 

The  procession  then  moved  to  the  exhibition  building, 
Avhich  was  opened  by  the  Lord  Mayor  in  the  same 
unostentatious,  democratic  manner.  A  Dublin  jour- 
nal, describing  the  opening,  thus  winds  up: 

Descending  to  the  floor  and  taking  uj)  a  good  posi- 
tion there,  he  could  note  a  few^  more  things.  Tiiere 
was  a  big  attendance  of  clergy.  Dr.  Dorrian.  of  Beh 
fast,  had  a  seat  whence  he  could  admire  the  per- 
formance of  the  splendid  organ,  for  the  loan  of  which 
the  Exhibition  is  indebted  to  him.  In  the  front  row  of 
the  semicircle  were  some  familiar  faces.  T.  D.  Sullivan 
was  on  the  next  chair  to  AA^.  H.  O' Sullivan.  A  few 
chairs  awa}^,  with  still  bright  features  and  still  bright 
eye,  sat  that  fine  old  veteran,  the  O' Gorman  Mahon 
The  audience,  on  a  nearer  view,  seemed  in  evei\v  respect 
the  right  sort  of  audience  for  the  occasion,  representing 
the  grit  and  intellect  of  every  part  of  tlie  country  from 


302  IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 

Cork  to  the  Giant's  Causeway.  Lawrence,  the  jjlioto- 
graplier,  had  excellent  materials  for  a  historical  picture, 
if  he  only  succeeded  in  getting  good  negatives  from  the 
many  points  of  view  in  which  he  tried  to  catch  a  like- 
ness of  the  scene. 

But  to  return  to  our  Lord  Mavor,  whom  we  left 
arriving  with  his  procession.  His  appearance  was  the 
signal  for  a  salvo  of  cheering,  wiiich  was  renewed  as 
eacii  of  the  great  ones  was  recognized  by  the  people — 
Parnell,  calm  and  pale  ;  Dillon,  looking  brighter  and 
stronger — God  be  thanked  for  it! — than  he  did  this 
many  a  day;  the  High  SheriiT,  whose  tall  figure  the 
crowd  were  not  slow  in  distinguishing.  Tiie  Lady 
Mayoress  and  household  were  escorted  by  Y.  Dillon  to 
places  on  the  dais.  On  the  Lord  Mayor  taking  his  seat, 
the  orchestra  and  chorus  struck  in  with  Mendelssohn's 
*'Hynin  of  Praise,*'  and  we  had  the  first  oppoitunity 
of  judging  what  kind  of  a  musical  treat  Mr.  Robinson 
had  provided  for  us. 

A  chorus  of  four  hundred  singing  such  a  hymn  of 
praise  as  that  in  such  a  building  should  produce  a  good 
effect  if  it  had  anv  excellence  at  all.    This  one  did 

ft/ 

anyhow,  helped  out  by  the  admirable  orchestra  and 
organ,  over  which  departments  all  of  us  gladly  noted 
two  old  friends  and  favorites,  R.  M.  Levey  and  John 
M.  Glynn  respectively,  presided.  The  "Hymn  of 
Praise"  was  followed  bv  a  selection  from  Havdn's 
Creation."  Mr.  Ludwig  opened  with  a  recitative,  the 
chorus  breaking  in  splendidly  with  "Let  there  be  light." 
This  oratorio  is  remarkable  for  its  magnificent  descrip- 
tive effects,  and  these  were  emphasized  with  wonderful 
power  b}^  Mr.  Ludwig  in  the  recitative,  "The  Raging 
Tempest,"  and  the  air,  "  Rolling  with  foaming  billows," 
and  by  Mr.  Barton  M'Guckin,  "In  splendor  bright  is 
rising  now  the  sun."    Miss  Adelaide  Mullen  sang  the 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION  303 

soprano  parts  with  precision,  and  her  sweet  voice  gave 
good  account  of  itself  in  the  closing  trio. 

AVIien  the  oratorio  was  finished  we  saw  a  gentleman 
rising  and  presenting  the  Lord  Mayor  with  a  key  in  a 
silken  case  and  a  book  in  a  green  cover.  This  was  Mr. 
Rooney,  the  secretary,  making  presentation  to  his 
lordship  of  the  keys  and  the  Exhibition  catalogue. 
AV hereupon  his  lordship  proclaimed,  in  clear  and  affable 
accents,  that  the  National  Exhibition  of  Irish  Industries 
and  Arts  was  duly  opened. 

Which  said,  in  came  the  band  and  chorus  again — 
this  time  with  Handel's  titanic  "Hallelujah"  from  the 
'•Messiali''  (the  oratorio,  by  the  way,  of  the  German 
msestro  whose  first  apx^reciative  audience  was  a  Dublin 
one).  One  listened  to  this  chorus  almost  with  awe — 
with  its  glorious  fugue  and  stupendous  diapason. 
When  it  was  over,  Alfred  Webb  came  forward  and  read 
an  address  from  the  diiectors  of  the  Exhibition  Gom- 
pan}'-  to  the  Lord  Mayor. 

The  Right  Hon.  the  Lord  Ma^^or,  the  Hon  Charles 
Dawson,  in  reply  to  the  address,  spoke  as  follows  • — 

Gentlemen,  with  heartfelt  pleasure,  I  receive  your  con- 
gratulations on  this  most  auspicious  event.  With  re- 
gard to  your  kind  references  to  myself,  I  may  truly 
say  they  apply  to  each  and  every  one  of  you.  And  I 
cannot  forget  nor  forbear  to  mention  the  hopefulness 
and  spirit;  that  animated  the  trades  and  woi  king  classes 
of  Dublin  and  of  all  Ireland  in  supporting  you  and  me 
in  the  task  we  had  undertaken.  The  success  is  a  tribute 
to  their  enero-v  and  self-reliance,  and  this  fairv  buildinir 
a  lasting  memorial  to  the  genius  and  steady  preseverance 
of  Irish  workmen.  Give  them  fair  play,  and  I  will 
guarantee  their  fidelity  and  exertions.  They  have  left 
behind  them  here  a  lasting  proof  of  their  i)()wer  to 
carry  out  a  work  without  a  moment's  interrui)tion.  I 
may  only  wish  all  the  new-born  industries  of  Ireland  a 


304 


IRELAND,  TAST  AND  PRESENT. 


like  support.  This  Exhibition  blends,  as  you  say,  all 
creeds  and  classes  in  the  great  work  of  national  pro- 
gress. May  it  be  an  omen  of  the  extension  of  that 
union  so  indispensable  to  our  success.  We  do  not 
desire  to  exclude  the  productions  or  manufactures  of 
other  lands,  but  rather  to  encourage  and  develop  our 
own.  No  one  can  blame  us  for  this.  I  am  quite  sure 
every  exhibitor  will  make  du^  allowance  for  the  diffi- 
culties with  which  we  had  to  contend.  If  any  are 
displeased  with  their  treatment,  it  is  want  of  space,  not 
of  disposition,  we  must  plead  as  our  excuse.  That 
want^can  only  be  repaired  by  another  Exhibition,  at 
which  the  increasing  industries  of  Ireland  shall,  I  hope, 
find  extended  and  sufficient  space.  You  say  much  de- 
pends upon  ourselves.  I  say,  all  under  God  rests  with 
us.  The  employers  and  workmen  of  Ireland  have  the 
future  x)rosperity  of  the  country  in  their  hands.  Here 
these  two  interests,  well-balanced  and  just  towards  each 
other,  have  achieved  a  triumph  which,  I  hope,  may  be 
only  the  lirst  of  a  long  series  for  our  country.  I  cannot 
reciprocate  your  concluding  prayer  for  my  own  hap- 
piness, to  which  this  day  so  largely  contributes,  without 
conveying  in  an  especial  manner  my  thanks  to  our  ex- 
cellent slaff.  The  tribute  to  our  architect,  Mr.  Ashlin, 
is  all  around  us;  Mr.  Dudijreon's  work  is  everywhere  to 
be  seen;  Mr.  Rooney  and  his  colleagues  deserve  immense 
praise  for  their  untiring  exertions,  promoted  by  an  in- 
terest higher  than  any  reward  could  create.  There  is 
one  name  which  comes  up  when  I  mention  the  stafip, 
who,  though  not  one  of  it  in  name,  was  its  mainspring 
in  all  things  involving  hard  work— I  mean  Alfred  Webb, 
our  fellow-director.  None  of  us  on  the  board  but  will, 
I  am  sure,  gratefully  acknowledge  the  special  services  of 
Mr.  Webb.  Were  Irish  enterprise  carried  out  in  the 
spirit  he  displayed,  then  all  would  meet  with  the  same 


r\i  T\   r>  A  T?  r  T  A  \TI7  VT   HniTQTT  DTTRTIM 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION. 


305 


marked  success  wliicli  shall,  I  trust,  attend  tliis  under- 
taking. 

DUBLIN  AND  ITS  PUBLIC  BUILDINGS. 

A  visit  to  the  Irish  metropolis  by  the  Irisiinian  who 
enters  it  lor  the  first  time  is  an  event  in  his  life;  while 
to  the  traveler  from  other  nations,  whether  he  be  born 
of  Celt  or  Gentile,  it  is  no  unimportant  event  either — if 
he  only  understands  it.  Yet  how  man 3^  are  there — like 
Peter  Bell,  to  wdiom  "  a  primrose  by  the  river's  brim,'^ 
a  yellow  primrose  was,  and  nothing  more — untraveled 
countryman  and  wayfaring  traverser  of  seas,  wdiocome 
to  Dublin  and  leave  it,  just  as  they  would  enter  and 
depart  from  any  city  under  the  sun,  enriched  with  no 
other  impressions  than,  mayhap,  that  it  was  a  citj^ 
and  that  a  city  was  a  place  with  fine  buildings,  and 
streets,  and  tramcars,  and  crowds,  and  squalor,  cheek- 
by-jowl  with  splendor;  or  that  it  was  a  "one-horse" 
concern,  that  the  people  were  uncommonly  slee^^y  in  a 
business  view,  though  civil,  that  the  policemen  were 
mostly  big,  that  double  X  stout  was  good  drinking  and 
cheap;  and  such  like,  according  to  the  temperament  of 
the  sojourners  and  the  circumstances  under  which  they 
make  their  stay?.  That,  we  should  say,  is  one  of  the 
worst  developments  of  Philistinism;  and  we  hearlily 
hope  there  will  be  more  inspiration  taken  in  by  all  who 
visit  Dublin  this  time  and  taken  home  with  them  to  aid 
the  promptings  to  deeds  and  aspirations  out  of  which 
will  gvo"^  the  history  of  tlie  future. 

Ruskin  made  a  charming  book  out  of  the  "Stones 
of  Venice;"  if  the  story  of  the  "  Stones  of  Dublin" 
were  written  it  would  make  a  book,  thouo-h  of  a  dif- 
fereiit  kind,  having  its  own  jiowerful  clinrm.  For 
Dublin  intrinsically  has  its  honored  place  among  the 
capitals,  and  Dublin's  history  is  a  condensed,  intensified 
refi^x  of  the  chequered  history  of  our  land.    To  all  and 


3C6 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


sundry  wlio  may  Lave  known  it  before,  cr  who  hear  It 
now  for  the  first  time,  be  it  known  that  Dublin,  from 
an  artistic  point  of  view,  is  one  of  the  finest  oaies  in 
the  workl.  Tiio  Character  of  its  numerous  public  build- 
ings and  of  its  principal  streets  is  surpassed  in  no  city. 
AValk  along  from  the  Rotunda  to  College  Green,  and 
vou  need  walk  ho  further  to  be  convinced  of  this. 
Then  if  vou  reflect  that  it  \va3  during  the  lifetime  of  a 
fostering  native  Parliament  that  Dublin  acquired  the 
chief  of  her  beauties,  you  will  begin  to  perceive  the 
bearing  her  historical  has  npon  her  architectural  aspect. 
Dublin,  orEblana,  or  Balliatli  Cliath,  orDubhlinn — the 
**Townof  tlie  Ford  of  Hurdles'' — has  an  antiquity  of 
seventeen  hundred  years,  as  record  sheweth.  There  is 
an  interesting  and  authentic  account  of  it  by  Ptolemy 
CLaudius,  bearing  date  A.  D.  140.  This  we  mention 
by  the  way.  For  the  rest,  in  this  connection,  is  it  not 
written  in  a  dozen  authorities,  beginning  with  the 
Black  Book  of  Christ  Church,  and  can  these  not  be 
consulted  bv  any  one  as  well  as  bv  no  who  wishes  to  be 
learned  on  the  subject?  Oar  x'^i'esent  task  is  to  show 
our  readers  over  the  present  city,  and  the  best  way  to 
begin  is  with 

A  bird's  eye  view. 

If  Xelson's  Pillar  be  good  for  anything,  besides  ob- 
structing the  traffic,  it  is  for  the  unequaled  view  of  the 
city  to  be  had  from  the  platform  at  its  top.  Any  of 
our  friends  who  are  sound  of  wind  and  limb,  and  or  an 
adventurous  turn,  we  would  recommend  to  invest  four- 
pence  in  obtaining  the  privilege  of  climbing  to  the 
summit  oL"  the  spiral  staircase  inside  the  column.  The 
active  weight  who  has  accomplished  the  ascent  suc- 
cessfully has  all  Dublin,  from  its  bay  to  the  mountains, 
spread  out  at  his  feet  like  a  map.    Sackville  Street, 

worthy  of  the  procession  of  a  Cleopatra,"  the  broad- 


I 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION  307 

est  and  stateliest  street  in  Europe,  to  •which  the  Maxi- 
niillian  Strasse  of  Munich,  with  its  garden  plots  down 
its  centre,  is  only  a  make-believe  intended  I'or  show  and 
not  for  business — Sackville  Street,  with  the  Rotunda 
and  Exhibition  Building  at  one  end,  the  O'Connell 
Monument  and  magnificent  O'Connell  bridge  at  the 
other,  the  General- Post-office  in  the  middle,  and  the 
rows  of  lofty  houses  at  either  side,  is  riglit  under  him. 
A  little  beyond  is  College  Green — one  of  the  grandest 
piazzas  in  the  world,  with  the  pillared  glories  of  the 
wliilom  temple  of  our  nationality,  the  street  facade  of 
Trinity  College,  and  the  imj)osing  banks  and  offices  of 
the  street  around;  beyond  this  is  Grafton  Street,  the 
afternoon  lounge  of  the  fashionable;  beyond  this  is  St. 
Stephen's  Green,  now  converted  into  a  i)eople's  jiark 
and  a  gem  of  landscape  gardening  by  the  liberality  o£ 
Lord  Ardilaun;  beyond  Stephen's  Green  are  Harcourt 
Street  and  the  Ratlimines  district,  and  beyond  theso 
are  the  Wicklow  Mountains.    The  two  green  patches 
to  the  left  of  Stephen's  Green  are  Merrion  Square  and 
Fitzwilliam  Square,  wliich,  with  the  neighborliood  sur- 
rounding, is  the  region  most  affected  b}^  the  Dublin 
''upper  ten."    That  long  and  wide  street,  thronged 
with  a  busy  commercial  life,  running  almost  parallel 
with  the  river,  is  made  up  of  James's  Street  and 
Thomas  Street.    In  the  former  is  Guinness' s  brewerv, 
which  is  a  sight  worth  seeing  as  an  Irish  manufactory 
and  the  greatest  porter  brewery  in  the  world,  and  to 
which  we  believe  permits  to  strangers  are  freely  and 
courteously  given.    With  the  latter  are  connected  many 
historical  associations — it  was  in  Thomas  Street  Robert 
Emmet  was  murdered  and  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald 
captured  by  Major  Sirr.    Thomas  Street  leads  into  High 
Street,  Christ-Church  Place  (which  takes  its  name  from 
the  Cathedral  standing  there).  Castle  Street,  and  Cork- 
hill,  where  stands  the  Castle — save  the  marki — auu 


308 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PEESEXT. 


round  the  corner  to  Dame  Street.  Tlie  Liffey,  witll  its 
quays  and  bridges,  looking  "so  like  the  Seine  at  Paris 
on  a  smaller  scale,  cuts  the  city  in  two.  The  localities 
adjoining  it  on  either  side  are  the  oldest  in  the  city. 
Fishamble  Street  is  amongst  them,  where  the  Grattans,  * 
ancestors  of  the  immortal  Henry,  used  to  live,  hard  by 
which  "  Drapier's  Letters"  were  published  and  Handel's 
L' Allegro"  and  Messiah"  lirst  produced.  (Mem.: 
At  the  performance  of  the  latter,  which  was  for  the 
benefit  of  a  charity,  the  ladies  were  requested  to  come 
without  hoops,  and  gentlemen  without  swords,  in  order 
to  give  room  for  the  bigger  audience;  the  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant attended,  and  £400  were  the  net  receipts.)  The 
Liberties  and  the  Coombe,  which  were  in  themselves  a 
city  of  industry  when  Ireland  had  her  manufactures, 
were  also  in  this  direction,  but  are  now — quantum 
mutatis  ah  illol — the  i)lague-spot  and  slough  of  misery 
and  desolation  of  the  city.  The  river  at  one  end 
vanishes  from  the  view  amid  the  foliage  of  the  Phoenix 
Park,  at  the  other  it  Hows  between  rows  of  shipping, 
past  docks  and  niarine-3'ards,  past  the  North  Wall  and 
tlie  Bull,  past  the  Pigeon-house  Fort  and  the  Light- 
liouse,  and  loses  itself  in  the  azure  waters  of  the  bav. 
Backwards,  due  North,  is  another  area  of  fine  streets — 
Gardiner  Street  and  Mountjoy  Square,  Rutland  Square 
and  Eccles  Street,  where  Isaac  Butt  used  to  live  (and 
the  Cardinal- Archbishop,  before  the  i:)alace  was  trans- 
ferred to  Rutland  Square),  at  the  top  of  which  is  the 
Mater  Misericordis)  Hospital;  Dorset  Street,  where 
Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  first  saw  the  light,  and 
Summer  Hill,  being  portion  of  the  ground  whereon 
Ciontarf's  famed  fight  was  fought,  ending  in  the  wide 
North  Circular  Road.  And  to  the  left  again  is  the 
Northwestern  district,  with  its  fringe  of  jails,  and  bar- 
racks, and  lunatic  asvlums — an  odd  association.  On 
all  sides  are  the  spires  of  churches,  the  domes  of  noble 


THE  DUBLIX  EXHIBITION. 


309 


edifices,  and  the  ceaseless  hum — alas!  not  as  resonant 
as  it  should  be — of  the  city's  work-day  life. 

Having  taken  this  general  cowp  d^oeil  of  the  city,  we 
may  descend  from  the  pillar  and  consider  the  question, 
what  are  we  next  to  see.  In  that  matter,  of  course,  we 
cannot  pretend  to  dictate.  The  tastes  of  men  are  varied, 
and  their  time  in  all  cases  is  not  unlimited.  We  will 
simply  mention,  therefore,  and  give  some  account  of 
the  XDrincipal  sights  in  Dublin  and  its  vicinity,  and  the 
best  way  to  see  them.  Our  visitors,  then,  can  take 
their  choice  as  to  what  they  will  see,  and  suit  their 
own  convenience  as  to  when  and  how  they  will  see  it. 

THE  BANK  OF  IRELAND. 

Undoubtedly,  the  first  part  of  the  city  for  the  visitor 
to  face  should  be  College  Green.  Halting  at  the  rail- 
ings of  the  College,  he  will  stand  within  a  space  whose 
stately  beauty  and  glorious  associations  no  city  can 
rival.  The  building  opposite  and  the  breathing  statue 
in  the  centre  of  the  ways  might  be  the  vision  of  a 
prophet-poet  crystallized  in  stone — the  cradle  of  a 
country's  nationhood,  and  the  man  from  whose  loins 
sprung  its  life.  Here  thundered  the  voice  of  the  Volun- 
teers, speaking  through  their  cannon.  Here  halted 
O'Connell  in  his  procession,  in  the  days  Avlien  the 
word  that  he  did  not  give  would  have  been  the  signal 
for  our  second  freedom,  and  transfixed  a  multitude 
with  an  inspired  motion  ol  his  hand.  Here  halted 
Parnell  in  his  procession  in  a  later  day  to  mark  our 
'recollection  of  the  real  goal  to  which  we  are  striving. 
Here  hover  the  dreams  of  every  Irish  patriot,  as  if 
some  unseen  power  impelled  them  towards  the  place, 
as  that  where  would  be  ultimately  witnessed  the 
jTatriot's  ideal  realized.  The  building,  which  is  now 
the  Bank  of  Ireland,  and  which  was  formerlv  the  Irish 


310 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Parliament  House,  is  ranked  as  the  most  perfect  speci- 
men of  architecture  in  the  three  kingdoms.  There  is 
certainly  no  house  of  legislature,  or  no  building  of 
any  kind  in  Europe,  no  matter  how  it  may  excel  in 
size  and  grandeur,  which  surpasses  it  in  nobility,  grace, 
or  the  striking  idealism  of  its  conception.  Its  erection 
was  commenced  in  1729,  on  the  site  of  old  Chichester 
House,  where  the  Parliament  used  previously  be  held, 
and  was  finished  in  1739  at  a  cost  of  £9o,0U0.  It  is 
built  in  the  form  of  a  semicircle  of  grand  Ionic  pillars, 
and  is  perfectly  symmetrical.  The  extent  of  the  grand 
portico  in  College  Green  is  147  feet;  on  the  apex 
of  its  tympanum  is  the  figure  of  Ilibernia,  on  either 
side  are  the  figures  of  Fidelit}^  and  Commerce.  To  the 
east  side— facing  and  frowning  ux)on  the  disgraceful 
and  disgusting  effigy  of  Moore — are  six  Corinthian 
columns,  whose  richness  make  a  fine  effect  added  to  the 
simple  Ionic  ;  they  are  headed  by  a  pediment  on  which 
are  placed  the  statues  of  Fortitude,  Liberty,  and 
Justice.  These  formed  the  portico  of  a  separate  en- 
'trance  to  the  House  of  Lords — an  addition  which  was 
made  in  1785  (in  1794  another  entrance  was  made  in 
the  western  side  ;  both  these  additions  cost  an  extra 
£50,000).  The  exterior  of  the  edifice  is  quite  in  l^eep- 
ing  with  the  majesty  of  its  interior.  The  middle  door 
under  the  portico  used  to  lead  to  the  House  of  Commons 
through  a  fine  hall.  The  form  of  the  Commons' 
chamber  was  singularly  beautiful — a  circle,  fifty-five 
feet  in  diameter  enclosed  in  a  square  ;  the  seats  rising 
above  each  other  in  concentric  tiers  ;  a  gallery  for  the 
public  running  around;  and  a  hemispherical  dome  sup- 
ported by  Corinthian  columns  covering  the  entire.  The 
Speaker's  chair  and  the  table,  with  all  the  insignia, 
were  on  the  floor.  This  room  itself  was  an  inspiration 
to  the  orator,  Avhose  eloquence  resounded  through  it 
with  an  added  dignitv.    The  House  of  Lords  was 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION. 


311 


anoHier  noble  apartment,  with  an  arched  ceilinf^  resting 
on  Covintliian  pillars,  and  having  a  rich  entablature 
running  round  the  four  sides.  The  fire-place  was  a 
beautiful  piece  of  work  in  Kilkenny  marble ;  above  it 
hung  a  tapestry  representing  the  Battle  of  the  Boyne  ; 
on  the  oj^posite  wall  was  another  commemorating 
the  Defense  of  Londonderry.  After  the  Union  this 
building  was  sold  to  the  Bank  of  Ireland  for  £50,000 
and  a  veaiiv  rent  of  £240.  Of  course  tLe  interior  had  to 
be  much  altered  to  suit  the  requirements  of  the  Bank. 
The  House  of  Commons  was  done  away  with,  and  now 
there  is  a  cash  office,  a  splendid  room  of  great  propor- 
tions, whose  beauty  is  enhanced  by  rows  of  Ionic 
columns,  entablature,  and  paneled  walls.  The  library, 
another  grand  apartment,  now  holds  the  books  of  the 
Bank,  and  the  House  of  Lords  is  the  meeting-room  of 
its  directors.  Towards  Forster  Place  is  the  guard- room 
and  printing-office,  where  the  notes  are  struck  off.  The 
roof  is  fiat,  and  of  such  vast  extent  that  a  regiment  of 
soldiers  could  be  mustered  on  it.  In  the  library  is  a 
fine  model  of  the  entire  building,  which  took  the  artist 
three  years  to  complete.  An  order  from  one  of  the 
directors  will  secure  admittance  to  the  printing-office 
and  other  private  portions  of  the  edifice. 

TRINITY  COLLEGE. 

• 

The  Parliament  House  looks  over  on  Trinity  College, 
the  alma  mater  of  so  many  of  the  former's  brightest 
ornaments.  Trinity  College  was  founded  by  Queen 
Elizabeth  in  1591  on  the  site  of  the  Augustinian  Monas- 
tery of  All-Hallows,  which  was  confiscated  by  Henry 
VIII.  The  building  presents  a  very  handsome  Corinthian 
facade  to  College  Green.  Inside  the  fine  gateway  and 
vestibule  is  an  immense  quadrangle,  allowed  to  be  one 
of  the  first  collegiate  squares  in  the  kingdom,  in  the 


312 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


centre  of  which  is  the  campanile,  or  bell  tower,  a  beau- 
tiful piece  of  architecture.  On  one  side  are  the  chapel 
and  dining  hall,  on  the  other  side  the  examination  hall 
and  library.  The  dining-hall  is  a  vast  building  which  ac  • 
commodates  over  300  persons;  it  contains  some  excellent 
portraits  of  distinguished  members  of  the  University. 
In  the  examination-hall  are  also  a  fine  collection  of 
portraits,  amongst  others  being  those  of  Bishop  Berkeley. 
Molyneiix,  Dean  Swift,  Henry  Grattan.  Hussey  Burgh, 
Henry  Flood,  Lord  Kihvarden,  Primate  Usher,  Dr. 
Baldwin,  and  many  more.  This  hall  also  contains  the 
chandelier  which  hung  from  the  dome  of  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons.  The  library  is  a  splendid  building, 
with  a  colonnade  beneath.  It  contains  upwards  of 
16,000  volumes,  many  of  which  are  most:  valuable  and 
rare,  in  tlie  centre,  together  with  the  Fagel  Library, 
about  25,000  books,  in  the  eastern  pavilion.  Its 
manuscripts,  too,  are  exceedingly  valuable,  while 
amongst  its  treasures  is  an  ancient  Irish  harp,  said  to 
belong  to  Brian  Boroihme.  Bevond  the  library  is  the 
**New  Square''  with  the  new  museum  building,  a  struc- 
ture in  the  Venetian  or  Cinque-Cento  style,  with  mould- 
ings and  carved  work  Giottesque,  which  for  effect  and 
diffuse  beauty  of  ornamentation  is  unequaled.  At  the 
other  side  of  this  buildiufi:  is  the  extensive  and  beautiful 
College  Park,  at  whose  far  end  are  the  medical  school, 
the  new  anatomical  museum,  and  the  gymnasium. 
We  should  mention  that  '*  Botany  Bay,"  immortalized 
by  Lever,  is  the  square  at  the  Brunswick  Street  side  of 
,the  College.  Tlie  Provost's  House  is  at  the  south  side, 
(opposite  Grafton  Street.  Strangers  are  always  courte- 
ously admitted  to  the  library,  museums,  and  other 
portions  of  the  College  on  presenting  their  cards.  In 
front  of  the  College  are  two  beautiful  statues — those  of 
Burke  and  Goldsmith;  while  between  the  College  and  the 
Bank,  in  a  most  effective  position,  is  the  almost  speak- 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION  313 

ing  statue  of  Grattan.  It  is  remarkable  that  tliese  three 
statutes  (thus  in  happy  fellowship)  of  three  great  Irish- 
men are  the  acknowledged  master-x)ieces  of  another 
great  Irishman,  the  sculptor  Foley. 

A  STATUE  WITH  A  STORY. 

No  visitor  should  turn  his  back  on  College  Green 
without  giving  a  little  time  to  reflection  on  the  illustrious 
back  that  is  turned  thereon  permanently  by  the  memor- 
able monstrosity  of  the  quarter,  the  equestrian  statue 
perpetuative  of  a  "glorious  and  pious"  memory. 
Chequered  has  been  the  fate,  venerable  the  history,  of 
this  war-worn  monument.  Erected  in  1701 — majestic, 
of  air,  the  little  Dutchman  arrayed  in  the  trapjiings  of 
a  Csesar,  and  riding  as  if  the  spurs  were  on  his  toes, 
the  impetuous  charger  curving  its  neck  in  a  suicidal 
fashion,  and  curving  its  off  fore-leg,  of  which  there 
is  fully  a  foot  and  a  half  more  than  of  any  of  the  other 
three,  in  a  way  showing  the  animal's  remarkable 
powers  of  accommodating  itself  to  the  difficulties  of  its 
own  anatomy — it  is  a  testimony  to  the  artistic  instinct 
and  imaginative  faculty  of  the  admirers  of  William  III. 
in  the  seventeenth  century.  The  material  of  which 
the  statue  is  composed  is  lead,  which,  if  not  a  very 
dignified  metal  for  sculptural  purposes,  has  proved,  in 
this  instance,  capable  of  making  a  monument  "more 
lasting  than  brass."  For  what  brazen  imaaje  would 
have  withstood  the  vicissitudes  of  this — the  villainous 
outrages  of  rebellious  Papists,  the  insults  of  the  Col- 
lege young  gentlemen,  indignant  at  being  only  allowed 
a  backside  vision  of  their  idol,  the  perennial  gunpowder 
of  the  Volunteers,  and,  above  all,  the  loyal  and  aes- 
thetic homage  of  five  generations  of  Orangemen  ? 
Since  the  time  it  was  erected  till  about  fifty  years  ago 
this  effigy  was  the  focus  of  glorious  celebrations  on 


314 


lEELAXD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Twelfths  of  July  and  Fourtlis  of  November.  On 
these  occasions  it  was  the  taste  of  the  Orangemen  to 
whitewash  their  fetish,  paint  the  x^edestal  blue,  cover 
AVilliam's  classic  nakedness  in  a  scarlet  cloak,  sup- 
plied  from  a  theatrical  property-shoi)  in  Anglesea  Street, 
and  smother  his  conqueror's  laurels  in  a  cocked-har. 
His  truncheon  they  decorated  with  orange  lilies,  and 
under  his  horse's  curled  foot  was  jDlaced  a  bunch  of 
green  and  white  ribbons — a  beautiful  conceit  typifying 
the  degradation  of  Irish  Poper3\  The  statue  was  in- 
dued with  the  honors  of  Gesler's  hat  on  such  anniver- 
saries, the  Orange  mob  saw  to  it  that  all  who  j^nssed 
their  image  should  uncover  and  do  homage.'  It  was  in 
front  of  this  statue  the  Volunteers  used  assemble  and 
round  its  pedestal  they  hung  their  gallant  mottoes.  In 
1792,  hoAvever,  they  abandoned  the  custom  in  defer- 
ence to  their  Catholic  brethren  and  to  the  spirit  of 
toleration  that  was  then  animating  Irish  national  life, 
and  the  last  time  they  did  appear  they  wore  green 
cockades  instead  of  the  accustomed  lilies.  On  the 
night  of  November  3rd,  1805,  a  man  came  to  the  watch- 
man on  guard  and  told  him  he  was  a  painter  come  to 
whiten  the  statue  for  the  morrow's  celebration.  After 
painting  away  for  a  couple  of  hours  he  asked  the 
watchman  to  look  after  his  pots  and  brushes  while  he 
went  to  his  emploj^er's  for  more  paint.  When  dark- 
ness vanished  and  the  morning  came,  Dublin  was  hor- 
rified to  behold  the  doughty  AVilliam  thickly  daubed 
over  with  the  blackest  pitch,  while  a  bucket  of  that 
compound  hung,  as  if  it  were  his  morning's  oats,,  from 
the, horse's  head.  But  it  was  on  the  nis^lit  of  April  7th, 
1836,  that  the  crowning  indignity  was  inflicted.  Shortly 
after  midnight  a  terrible  explosion  startled  the  echoes 
of  the  place.  Some  nameless  desperado  had  placed  a 
charge  of  fulminating  silver  beneath  William,  which 
blew  him  out  of  the  saddle  a  great  height  into  the  air 


THE  DUBLIN  EXIIIBITIOTf. 


315 


and  landed  liini  in  Trinity  Street,  wliere  lie  was  found 
next  morning,  his  iace  pitifully  battered,  and  conveyed 
in  a  donkey's  cart  to  the  foundrv  to  be  mended.  It 
was  when  O'Conniell  was  Lord  Mayor  that  the  troubles 
of  the  veteran  were  linally  brought  to  an  end:  a  Papist 
heart  that  had  learned  to  succor  the  wretched  took 
compassion  on  the  poor  statue,  and  liad  it  scraped  of 
all  irs  coats  of  paint  and  lime  and  pitch,  and  done  up 
decently,  as  it  now  a^^pears,  in  monumental  bronze 
picked  out  with  gold. 

THE  EOYAL  lEISII  ACADEMY. 

A  few  doors  below  the  Mansion  House,  in  Dawson 
Street,  to  the  true  Irishman  will  be  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting places  to  be  visited  in  Dublin.  It  is  endeared 
to  us  and  honored  by  the  associations  of  such  men  as 
Thomas  Davis,  Smith  O'Brien,  Dr.  Petrie,  Sir  William 
Wilde,  as  well  as  by  the  great  national  work  which  it 
has  done.  Its  museum,  which  is  open  every  day  free 
to  the  public,  is  the  most  valual)le  of  Irish  arclia3ologi- 
cal  treasures,  of  which  Sir  William  Wilde  has  made  an 
elaborate  and  learned  catalogue.  An  hour  spent  in  it 
is  an  inspiring  lesson  on  our  national  past — a  revelation 
as  to  what  sort  of  people  our  remote  ancestors  were, 
which  every  Irishman  would  be-  the  better  of  experi- 
encing. The  Tara  Brooch  is  a  wondrous  triumph  of 
exquisite  design  and  workmanship,  a  dazzling  gem 
to-day,  though  it  is  over  a  decade  of  centuries  old. 
The  Ardagli  Chalice,  a  relic  of  the  ninth  century,  with 
its  beautiful  inlaid  stones  and  delicate  surface-chasing; 
the  Cross  of  Cong,  tenth  century,  marvelous  in  its  in- 
tricate filagree-work,  fit  for  the  church  of  a  pontiff;  the 
Shrine  of  St.  Patrick's  Bell — the  bell  itself  is  also  ex- 
hibited here — with  its  chaste  tracery  and  glowing 
jewels;  and  all  the  beautiful  golden  brooches,  bracelets, 


316 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


collars,  coronets,  and  rings  displayed  about  the  '^strong- 
room," are  the  belongings  of  a  people  the  essence  of 
whose  life  was  art,  poetry,  refinement,  culture,  and 
lofty  idealism.  Tiiey  are  some  of  what  is  left  to  us 
of  the  Ireland  of  Saints  and  Doctors,  who  sent  the 
lirst  professors  to  Oxford,  and  was  the  educator  of 
Western  Europe.  In  the  library  of  the  Academy  is 
preserved,  among  other  relics,  the  Speakers  Chair  of 
the  Irish  House  of  Commons. 

THE  MANSION  HOUSE. 

The  Lord  Mayors  official  residence  is  in  Dawson 
Street.  It  is  a  spacious  house  with  many  large  and 
handsome  rooms,  the  chief  of  which  is  the  "Round 
Koom,"  in  which  the  civic  balls  and  great  public  en- 
tertainments are  given.  The  roof  of  this  tine  room 
is  entirely  unsupported  by  pillars.  It  was  built  by 
the  Corporation  at  the  time  of  George  IV.' s  visit, 
for  the  pur2)ose  of  accommodating  the  great  number 
of  guests.  In  the  garden  at  the  side  there  is  a  ridicu- 
lous equestrian  statue  of  George  I.,  who  apjDears  to  be 
looking  complacently  over  the  railings,  as  if  the  roj'al 
jockey  was  conscious  he  could  take  the  wall  at  a  '*  fly'' 
if  he  were  so  minded.  It  has  been  whispered  in  Gath 
that  the  present  Mansion  House  is  getting  a  bit  seedy, 
and  that  with  the  increasing  dignity  of  Dublin  tlie 
time  will  not  be  long  coming  when  the  Corporation  will 
be  asked  to  enlarge  it  or  build  a  new  one. 

THE  ROYAL  DUBLIN  SOCIETY'S  BUILDINGS. 

Amongst  the  most  important  of  the  free  sights  of 
Dublin  are  the  group  of  buildings  of  the  Royal  Dublin 
Societ)''.  approachable  from  Kildare  Street,  and  through 
Leinster  Lawn,  from  Merrion  Square.    The  central 


I 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITIOl^.  317 

building,  Leinster  House,  was  originally  the  town 
residence  of  the  great  duke  of  that  ilk  in  the  time 
when  Dublin  was  the  capital  of  a  self-governing  nation, 
and  is  itself  a  inagnilicent  testimony  to  what  Dublin 
and  its  social  life  must  have  been  in  the  fostering  sun- 
shine of  those  pre-Union  days.  The  elegant  buiklings 
flanking  Leinstfn-  Lawn  are  the  National  Gallerv  and 
the  Museum.  The  former  comprises  on  the  ground 
floor  a  sculpture  hall,  a  noble  tiled  and  pillared  apart- 
ment, in  which  an  important  collection  of  casts  from 
the  antique — a  feature  distinct  from  that  of  either 
London  or  Edinburgh — is  exhibited.  At  the  end  of  this 
hall  is  a  splendid  double-lighted  stair-case  leading  to 
the  picture  gallery  overhead.  The  gallery  contains 
many  of  the  genuine  old  masters,  a  profuse  number  of 
copies  therefrom,  and  some  valuable  sx)ecimens  of  the 
modern  schools.  The  gallery  is  open  to  the  public 
free  every  day  but  Saturday  and  Friday,  from  twelve 
o'clock  till  six,  and  on  Sundays  from  two  o'clock.  The 
Museum  on  the  opposite  side  contains  a  wealth  of  s])eci- 
mens  and  objects  relating  to  the  sciences  of  geology, 
ornithology,  entomology,  and  conchology.  One  of  its 
most  remarkable  treasures  is  an  almost  perfect  skeleton 
of  the  fossil  giant  deer  of  tihis  country.  What  will  be 
more  interesting  than  the  scientific  department  to  the 
general  visitor  will  be  the  very  rare  and  interesting 
ancient  Irish  ornaments  and  weapons,  and  the  fine  collec- 
tions of  Estuscan  vases,  and  many  models  of  other  art 
objects  to  be  seen  here.  This  building  is  open  to  the 
public  free  on  Monday,  Wednesday,  Friday,  and  Satur- 
day from  twelve  to  three  o'clock.  The  central  building, 
Leinster  House,  contains  a  very  extensive  library  and 
reading-rooms,  to  the  use  of  which  the  public  are  ad- 
mitted. In  the  spacious  and  lofty  hall  there  are  many 
beautiful  specimens  of  modern  sculpture,  which  have 
been  greatly  enriched  by  the  generous  Foley  bequest. 


/ 


318  lEELAND,  PAST  AND  PPwESENT. 

In  connection  with  the  Royal  Dublin  Society  is  an  ex- 
cellent  School  of  Design,  and  the  Botanic  Gardens, 
^  Glasnevin,  noticed  in  another  place.  This  society  lias 
the  high  distinction  of  being  the  oldest  of  all  similar 
ones  existing.  In  a  corner  of  Leinster  House  stands  a 
statue,  bv  Farrell,  of  the  liberal-handed  William  Dar- 

ft/  ' 

gan,  who  should  not  be  forgotten  tliese  times,  as  he 
was  the  founder  of  the  lirst  Irish  Industrial  Exhibition, 
wliicli  was  held  twenty-nine  years  ago  on  that  very 
site. 

THE  CUSTOM  HOUSE. 

A  few  hundred  vards  below  O'Connell  Bridore,  on  the 
north  side  of  the  river,  stands  the  Custom  House.  The 
visit  here,  only  that  we  have  entered  upon  the  era  of 
trade-revival,  would  be  a  depressing  one.  One  of  the 
finest  buildings  in  the  metropolis — it  is  handsomer  than 
the  London  Custom  House,  and  bia'a'er  than  the  Douane 
at  Marseilles — it  is  a  sadanacbronism,  as  far  as  Dublin  is 
concerned,  a  building  without  its  legitimate  occupation. 
The  corridors  and  courts  and  places  which  should  be 
resonant  with  the  hum  of  commerce  are  silent  and  all 
but  deserted,  and  over  the  spacious  offices  and  apart- 
ments which  should  be  devoted  to  the  customs'  business 
of  a  thriving  port  are  written  such  names  as,  "Poor 
Law,"  '-Stamps,"  "Board  of  ^Yorks,"  "Assay," 
"Inland  Revenue,"  "Commissioners  of  Woods  and 
Forests."  But  there  it  stands,  nevertheless,  waiting 
its  good  time,  which  is  soon  to  come — its  vast  and 
^  stately  proportions,  its  lofty  cupola,  statue-crowned 
'  ix>of,  pillared  facades,  w^aiting  the  time  wlien  Dublin 
will  be  a  credit  to  its  custom  house  and  its  custom 
house  a  credit  to  it. 

THE  FOUR  COURTS. 

The  regal  science  of  the  law  lias  certainly  a  temple  it 
need  not  be  ashamed  of  in  Dublin.    The  Four  Courts 


THE  DUBLIJT  ' EXHIBITION. 


319 


on  Inn's-quay,  scene  of  so  many  mighty  trials  and 
exciting  incidents,  present  a  most  imposing  front  to 
the  river.  The  pile  is  surmounted  by  a  noble  dome, 
which  forms  the  roof  of  a  circular  liall  in  the  centre  of 
the  building,  off  which  are  the  entrances  to  the  several 
courts.  A  statue-  of  Trath  adorns  the  centre  of  this 
hall,  and  historical  .pieces  in  bas-relief  are  placed  in 
the  panels  over  the  entrances  to  the  courts,  the  subjects 
including  William  the  Conqueror  forming  Courts  of 
Justice:  John  signing  the  Magna  Charta;  the  Irish 
Chieftains  and  Henry  II.;  James  I.  signing  the  Act 
of  Oblivion  and  declaring  th^  abolition  of  the  Brehon 
Laws.  Between  the  eight  windows  of  "the  dome 
are  statues  of  Law,  Justice,  Mercy,  Wisdom,  Provi- 
dence, Eloquence,  Vengeance,  and  Liberty.  The  frieze- 
work  is  adorned  by  medallions  of  the  ancient  law- 
givers— OUamh  Fodhla,  Moses,  Confucius,  Lycurgus, 
Solon,  Numa,  Alfred,  Marcelio  Caprse.  In  the  hall 
also  are  statues  of  Lord  Plunkett,  Sir  Michael  O'Loghlen, 
and  Chief  Justice  Whiteside.  Of  what  may  be  seen 
in  this  hall  when  it  is  term-time,  and  what  is  done 
then  in  these  courts,  we  refrain  from  writing,  for  is  not 
this  writ  large  in  a  thousand  satires  wdiereto  those  who 
are  interested  may  turn?    Besides  this  is  not  term-time. 

''the  CASTLE.'' 

Of  the  evil  phenomena  of  this  life,  there  is  no  class 
of  them  so  repellant  as  that  of  things  which  are  old, 
and  whose  vice  and  ugliness  age  serves  only  to  intensify. 
Such  a  mo-nster  is  Dublin  Castle.  It  is  ugly  in  its 
appearance  and  as  ugly  in  its  deeds  since  the  day  King 
John  built  it,  with  fortress  and  dungeons,  to  protect 
liimself  from  the  outer  Irislirie  and  terrorize  the  city. 
From  the  King  who  betrayed  his  own  brother  and  his 
own  country,  in  the  eleventh  century,  to  the  Cabinet 


820 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PliESENT. 


Minister  who  betraj'ed  the  secrets  of  his  Cabinet  in  the 
last  quarter  of  the  nineteenth,  its  occupants,  either 
fateful] y  chosen  as  spirits  akin,  or  i)oisonecl  by  its 
atmosphere,  have  been  piling  on  its  evil  character,  in 
the  ratio  of  arithmetical  progression.  Of  all  the  wicked 
and  unlovely  old  institutions  that  ever  were,  it  is  the 
worst.  The  Inquisition  had  the  merit  of  being  pictur- 
esque. There  was  a  certain  dignity  about  the  Star 
Chamber.  But  there  is  nothing  in  ''the  Castle''  of 
Dublin  that  raises  it  out  of  the  slime  of  which  the  toads 
and  vermin  are  begotten.  It  is  certainly  not  a  theme 
to  be  introduced  amongit  the  subjects  of  a  pleasure 
visit,  and  it  should  not  be  spoken  of  in  the  connection 
but  from  the  important  part  it  plays  in  the  government 
of  our  country.  Unfortunately,  the  history  of  ''the 
Castle"  is  inseparably  wound  into  the  past  history  of 
our  land.  ''The  Castle"  hasever been  the  quanon 
of  English  rule  in  Ireland — the  most  potent  demoralizer 
of  our  national  and  social  life — and  every  Irishman  in 
the  Irish  metropolis  for  the  first  time  will  do  well  to 
visit  the  Castle,  andimpress  its  features  onhismemory. 
He  can  always  recall  them  afterwards  when  he  hears 
the  name  mentioned,  and  that  will  be  useful,  as  the 
recollection  will  leave  him  a  less  likely  subject  for  the 
subtle  and  far-reaching  influence  of  the  place. 

THE  CHURCHES. 

One  of  the  rarest  of  the  visitors'  treats  will  be  the 
churches.  Of  the  ancient  churches  to  be  visited  the 
two  chief  are  Christ  Church  and  St.  Patrick's.  Apart 
from  their  intrinsic  beauty,  the  history  of  these  and 
the  proof  they  give  of  what  Catholicity  and  architecture 
must  liave  been  in  Dublin  eight  centuries  ago,  are  mat- 
ters of  great  value  and  interest.  It  would  be  too  much 
here  to  give  anything  like  the  historical  sketch  that 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION.  •  321 

might  be  given  of  these  churclies  or  to  detail  what  is 
to  be  seen  there.  It  is  enough*  to  mention  of  Christ 
Church  that  St.  Patrick  said  Mass  in  it;  that  it  was 
there  Lambert  Simnel  was  crowned;  that  for  some  time 
the  Irish  Parliament  assembled  within  its  walls;  and 
that  Strongbow's  tomb  is  preserved  there  to  the  present 
day.  Through  the  m-unificence  of  Mr.  Poe,  the  dis- 
tiller, this  cathedral  has  been  completely  restored; 
amongst  the  additions  to  its  internal  beauties  is  a 
splendid  rood-screen;  Mr.  Eoe  has  also  built  a  synod 
house  in  the  style  of  the  church,  which  is  reached  from 
the  latter  by  an  effective  covered  bridge  spanning 
Michael's  Hill.  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral  owes  its  res- 
toration to  the  liberality  of  another  eminent  member 
of  the  liquor  trade,  the  late  Sir  Benjamin  Lee  Guinness. 
This  church  was  consecrated  by  Archbishop  Comyn  in 
the  tenth  century.  Its  interior  is  very  beautiful  and 
vast.  The  ancient  crypt,  under  the  south  aisle  of  the 
nave,  which  was  probably  the  original  seat  of  the 
Dublin  University  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  fourteenth 
centur}',  should  be  seen.  In  Sr. Patrick's  are  preserved 
many  battle-torn  military  flags  and  trophies  and  relics; 
and  amongst  the  mural  tablets  are  two  commemorative 
of  Bean  Swift  and  Stella.  Pamphlet  descriptions  of 
both  these  churches  are  to  be  had  from  the  vergers  at 
the  gates.  Of  course,  the  principal  of  the  modern 
Catholic  churches  will  be  visited  by  most  strangers  m 
Dublin  these  w^eeks — all  the  ancient  ones,  which  were- 
Catholic  too,  being  now,  as  the  Americans  would  say, 
"worked"  in  the  Protestant  interest.  The  Catholic 
churches  of  our  city  are.  with  scarce  an  exception,  ex- 
ceedinoflv  beautiful,  each  in  its  different  way,  and  are 
a  wonderfnl.  testimony  to  the  status  of  the  Faith  in  the 
capital  of  Ireland.  It  would  be  almost  invidious  to 
mention  any,  where  all  have  such  attractions,  and  where 
all  are  so  easily  accessible,  without  the  helj^  that  we 


322  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

can  give.  Bat  we  may  allude  at  least  to  the  Mission 
Fathers'  Church,  Pliibsborough;  the  Pro-Cathedral, 
Marlborough  Street;  St.  Francis  Xavier,  or  the  Jesuit 
Church,  in  Up|w  Gardiner  Street;  the  Passionists' 
Church  at  Mount  Argus,  Harold' s-Cross;  St.  Andrew's, 
Westland  Kow;  and  St.  John's,  Berkelej^  Street,  as 
amongst  tlie  most  noteworthy;  whilst  undoubtedly  the 
prettiest  church,  as  far  as  decoration  is  concerned,  is 
Sc.  Alphonsus's,  Drumcondra.  There  are  a  few  old 
churches  in  Dublin  which  the  patriot  should  visit  for 
their  sacred  associations.  In  St.  Werburgh's  in  Wer- 
burgli  Street,  one  of  the  most  jiopular  of  the  city 
temples  in  old  days,  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  is  buried. 
His  body  was  laid  here,  under  the  chancel,  one  night 
in  1798.  By  a  singular  stroke  of  the  irony  of  fate. 
Major  Sirr,  his  capturer,  is  buried  in  St.  Werburgh's 
church-yard,  and  the  two  fierce  combatants,  having 
been  laid  low  by  the  great  leveler,  sleep  their  last  sleep 
almost  side  by  side  in  the  same  clay  to-day.  Tn  the 
vaults  of  St.  Michan's  Church,  in*  Church  Street,  lie 
the  bones  of  the  brothers  John  and  Henry  Sheares, 
and  in  its  graveyard  is  the  tomb  of  Dr.  Lucas.  There 
are  very  peculiar  i:>roperties,  by  the  way,  attached  to 
the  vaults  of  this  church,  attributed  to  their  drv  state, 
of  preserving  the  bodies  interred  in  them;  and  several 
bodies  buried  there  many  years  ago,  still  in  a  perfect 
state  of  preservation,  are  a  very  curious  sight.  While 
on  the  subject  of  tombs,  it  should  be  noted  that  Thomas 
Davis  lies  in  Mount  St.  Jerome,  the  fine  Protestant 
cemetery  of  the  cit}^  and  that  a  handsome  monument  is 
erected  over  the  grave,  which  forms  (me  of  the  cemetery's 
chief  attractions.  It  is  worthy  of  mention,  too,  that 
Mrs.  Ilemans,  the  poetess,  is  buried  in  St.  Anne's 
Church,  in  Dawson  Street. 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION.  '62'6 
THE  MATER  MISERICORDI.E  HOSPITAL, 

"whicli  is  admittedly  one  of  the  handsomest  and  most 
admirable  institutions  of  its  kind  in  the  Three  King- 
doms, is,  without  doubt,  one  of  the  sights  of  Dublin. 
It  is  presided  over  by  the  Sisters  of  Mercy,  and  this  is 
enough  to  say  that  it  is  a  heaven  to  all  who  are  sick 
and  maimed,  and  lucky  enough  to  get  there,  no  matter 
what  faith  they  worship  in.  But  what  the  visitor  will 
most  be  struck  with  is  the  building  itself — its  vastness 
and  beauty;  the  unusual  elegance  of  its  interior;  its 
grand  hall  and  staircase;  its  pathological  museum  and 
operation  theatre,  altogether  unequaled  in  this  coun- 
try; its  "mute  matted  corridors"  and  its  wards,  with 
their  exquisite  cleanliness,  airiness,  perfume  of  flowers, 
and  sisters  like  ministering  angels,  flitting  to  and  fro. 

GLASNEVIN  CEMETERY 

Glasnevin  is  one  of  the  finest  cemeteries  attached  to 
any  city  in  Europe.  ,  Any  one  who  sees  it  wall  say  this 
at}  once — none  more  readily  than  the  man  who  has 
traveled.  Pere-la-C liaise  is  the  Glasnevin  of  Paris, 
and  the  model  cemetery  of  the  Continent,  but  the 
beauties  of  Peie-la-Chaise  seem  tainted  with  rouge  and 
I)owder  when  one  has  seen  the  sw-elling  naturalness  of 
Glasnevin.  The  beautifully  kept  i)aths,  the  waving 
trees,  the  rich  countr}^  with  the  Tolka  meanderijig 
hard  by,  the  pretty  mortuary  chapel  in  the  centre,  the 
subdued  and  distant  hum  of  the  city,  miike  it  a  true 
God's-acre,  a  genuine  Mother  of  the  Dead,  in  whose 
bosom  her  sleeping  children  are  held  lovingly.  The 
most  striking  feature  in  the  cemetery,  on  entering  the 
gate,  is  O'Connell's  tomb,  with  its  beautiful  round 
tower,  and  the  '^O'Connell  Circle,"  where  sleep  Curran 
and  "honest  Tom  Steele."  The  memorial  cross  of  the 
Manchester  martyrs,  while  a  shrine  for  the  imtriot,  is 


324 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


also  a  theme  of  admiration  from  the  visitor.  Some 
one,  too.  has  at  last  found  out  Clarence  Mangan's  grave, 
and  X)ut  up  a  direction-post  near  it.  The  dear  poet  of 
tears  and  glowing  dreams  has  had  his  wish  in  death — 
the  grave  that  Korner  longed  for,  where  none  come  to 
mourn  but  the  birds  and  the  caressing  breezes,  the 
night  weeping  her  dews,  and  the  "cold,  cold  moon 
tenderly  shining.-'  But  he  who  goes  to  Glasnevin  can 
lind  out  all  else  that  is  interesting  for  himself  on  the 
ground — the  officials  are  obliging.  The  tram  passes 
the  gate,  and  will  bring  him  on  a  little  farther  to  the 

BOTANIC  GARDENS 

of  the  Royal  Dublin  Society.  These  are  excellently  kept; 
their  forcing-houses,  with  every  gradation  of  climatic 
temperature,  growing  all  sorts  of  vegetation  from  the 
Alpine  edelweiss  and  Icelandic  heather  to  the  pine* 
trees  and  bananas  of  the  trojiics,  should  not  be  left 
iinvisited. 

THE  PARK.  , 

The  Phoenix  Park,  anyhow,  is  one  point  on  which 
Dublin  claims  superiority  to  every  cit}^  in  Europe.  It 
is  a  grand  expanse  of  undulating  coun'try,  characterized 
by  the  beauties  of  wood  and  river,  and  surrounded  by 
magnificent  mountain  scener}'',  to  which  the  Aveary 
denizen  of  the  Dublin  purlieus  can  turn  out  at  ten 
minutes'  notice  and  breathe  reviving  air  and  fancy  him- 
self in  Arcadia.  The  Park  has  attractions  apart  from 
its  natural  beauties — there  are  the  People's  Garden, 
the  Viceregal  Lodge,  the  residences  of  the  Chief  and 
Under-Secretaries,  the  Royal  Irish  Constabulary  Depot, 
the  Gough  Memorial  Statute,  the  AVellington  art 
triumph,  the  Zoological  Gardens.  These  latter  are 
specially  worth  visiting  b}^  the  tourist  in  Dublin — they 
are  extensive,  handsome,  well  stocked  with  birds,  beasts 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION. 


325 


and  fishes  of  all  sorts,  and  the  price  of  admission  on 
Sundays  is  two  pence.  Chapelizod  is  a  jiretty  villnge 
on  the  Liffey  at  one  end  of  tlie  Park.  TJie  famous 
Strawberry  Beds  are  on  the  Liffe\^  near  Castle'knock. 
The  Park  has  historical  associations  other  tlian  those 
of  the  review  in  the  Fifteen  Acres.  The  Wellington 
Testimonial,  if  it  did  nothinf^  else,  marks  the  scene  of 
the  police  battne  in  1871;  and  right  opi)osite  the  Vice- 
regal Lodge  the  .visitor  may  stand  on  the  scene  of  the 
awful  tragedy  of  three  months  ago,  which  Earl  Spencer 
witnessed  from  its  windows.  While  in  the  Park 
neigiiborliood,  those  so  minded  conld  conveniently 
have  a  look  at  grim  Kilniainham.  The  Kingsbridge 
railway  terminus  is  a  very  handsome  building  near  at 
liand  in  the  opposite  direction;  and  the  Royal  Hosj)ital 
for  old  soldiers,  between  Kingsbridge  and  Kilmainham, 
also  deserves  a  look  in  passing.  Some  celebrated 
cricket  clubs  have  their  grounds  in  the  Park,  and 
there  is  an  excellent  polo  ground  near  the  Viceregal 
establishn^ent.  A  drive  through  and  round  the  Park — 
which  a  partv  of  three  or  fonr  mav  "  do"  very  cheaplv — 
is  one  of  the  very  best  ways  of  i)utting  in  a  few  hours 
dnrimr  a  visit  to  Dublin. 

THE  KINGSTOWN  AND  WICKLOW  DISTKICT. 

Dublin's  proximity  to  the  sea  is  one  of  its  crowning 
advantages.  Dublin  Bay  has-been  compared  to  the 
Bay  of  Naples,  and,  while  not  prejiared  to  go  exactly 
that  length  with  enthusiasts,  we  must  agree  with 
every  one  who  ever  sailed  into  it,  except  Mr.  Thackeray, 
who  came  in  th<5  dark,  that  the  bay  of  I  he  Irish  metropo- 
lis is  a  truly  magnificent  one,  and  is  endowed  with 
beauties  (^f  its  own,  which  even  the  Neapolitans  might 
envy.  No  trip  to  Dublin  is  complete  without  a  trip  to 
Kingstown,  which,  besides  its  splendid  harbor,  where 


326 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


mail  jiackets  and  men-o' -war  securely  ride,  its  liand- 
some  terraces,  imijosing  new  Town  Hall  and  fine  hotels, 
can  boast  an  obelisk  commemorating  a  most  notable 
circumstance — namely,  that  the  spot  whereon  it  stands 
was  the  last  spot  of  Irish  earth  touched  by  George  IV.' s 
gouty  toe,  on  his  departure  from  Ireland  in  1821,  when 
Kingstown  Urst  became  Kingstown,  in  his  honor,  and 
discarded  its  honest  patron ym  of  Dunleary.  The  sur- 
roundings of  the  town,  both  at  the  Dublin  and  AVicklow 
side,  are  vtji^y  beautiful.  Trains  run  to  and  from  Kings- 
town every  lifteen  minutes.  Those  who  like  tramway 
riding  can  tram  it  to  Booterstown  and  Blackrock,  walk 
from  that  to  Kingstown,  and  tram  it  again  from  that  to 
Dalkey,  if  they  so  elect.  Down  to  Bray  is  the  loveliest 
of  trips,  the  railway  running  along  the  coast,  i)ast 
Dalkey,  Killiney,  and  Ballybrack,  in  a  manner  com- 
manding sea  views  unsurpassed  by  those  of  an}-  rail- 
w^ay  in  any  country.  To  climb  to  the  top  of  Killine\' 
Hill  and  look  from  its  obelisk,  is  to  behold  a  panorama 
w'ortli  climbing  any  hill  to  see.  When  in  Bray,  and 
having  walked  round  the  Head,  it  is  the  easiest  thing 
in  the  world  to  take  a  run  to  Enniskerry,  only  three 
miles  away,  the  most  prettily  situated  of  villages, 
nestling  amid  a  coverlet  of  trees  in  the  bed  of  a  lovely 
valle3\  Here  one  may  get  a  j>ass  to  visit  the  Poweis- 
court  demesne  and  glorious  water-fall,  while  the  famous 
Dargle  is  close  at  hand,  and  the  Glen  of  the  Downs 
not  faraway;  the  Sugar  Loaves  looking  serenely  down, 
and  visible  from  all  points  of  view. 

HO^VTH. 

For  bold,  wild,  natural  coast  scenery,  however,  com. 
mend  us  to  Howth.  A  convenient  train  runs  from 
Amiens  Street  to  Howth,  whence  the  sturdy  pedestrian, 
in  search  of  bracing  air  and  gorgeous  land  and  sea- 


THE  DUBLIN  EXHIBITION. 


327 


scapes,  can  trudge  boldly  liillwards,  the  new  road  iriak- 
ing  the  ascent,  to  the  healthy-limbed,  a  mere  bagatelle. 
From  the  top  of  the  hill,  the  magnificence  of  the  widely- 
extended  ocean  view  is  simply  indescribable.  All 
Dublin  Bay  is  stretched  before  the  tourist  like  a  map, 
Ireland's  Eye,  with  its  ruined  church  of  St.  Nessan,  is 
on  his  left;  Lambay,  the  renowned,  is  beyond,  it;  and 
forty  miles  away  he  can  see,  clear  cut  and  bold,  the 
outlines  of  the  Mourne  Mountains.    The  Bailey  Light- 
house, right  off  the  commanding  "Nose"  of  Howth, 
is  an  attractive  bit  in  the  scene;  while  the  fishing  boats 
and  steamers,  ploughing  their  way  out  in  the  blue  sea, 
give  the  picture  life  and  animation.    The  ruined  Abbey 
of  Howth,  dedicated  to  the  Blessed  Virgin,  and  said 
to  have  been  built  by  the  St.  Lawrences,  six  centuries 
ago,  is  a  most  interesting  place  to  visit;  while  Howth 
Castle,  the  residence  of  the  Earl,  when  he  is  at  home, 
is  always  open  to  the  visitor,  and  is  well  worth  seeing. 
A  delightful  steamer  excursion  is  often  made  to  Lam- 
bay Island,  which  is  always  duly  advertised  in  the 
papers.    Clontarf,  the  Irish  Marathon,  is  at  the  Howth 
side  of  Dublin,  and  one  of  its  prettiest  northern 
subui'bs.  * 

THEATRES  AND  AMUSEMENTS. 

Alas  for  Dublin!  It  has  only  one  high-class  theatre 
since  the  noble  old  Roval  was  burnt,  and  Dubliners 
and  their  visitors  have  to  suffer  all  the  drawbacks 
which  a  management  with  a  monopoly  can  inflict  upon 
them  with  luxurious  impunity.  We  must  be  thankful 
for  small  mercies,  however,  and,  as  far  as  amusements 
in  this  connection  are  concerned,  direct  our  friends  to 
the  advertisements,  where  the  theatres,  and  music- 
halls,  and  concert-rooms,  and  circus  temptingly  se^ 
forth  their  bills  of  fare. 


1 


3^8 


IRELAIN^D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  IRISH  HIERARCHY. 

Their  Views  on  the  Land  League — Extracts  from  their 
Pastorals  and  Addresses — Their  Address  to  the 
People  of  L'eland. 

Should  a  single  priest  or  bishop  speak  in  opposition 
to  the  Land  League  movement  in  Ireland,  immediately 
the  English  papers  and  the  enemies  of  Ireland  in  gen- 
eral lay  hold  of  the  fact  and  by  labored  efforts  try  and 
manufacture  it  into  a  general  opposition  on  the  part  of 
the  Irish  hierarchy  and  priesthood  in  general.  Even 
all  kinds  of  bulls  and  denunciation  condemning  the 
movement  have  been  weekly  manufactured  b}^  the 
English  press,  to  be  immediar.ely  afterwards  swallowed 
as  a  falsehood.  The  truth  is,  while  the  agitation  keeps 
witliin  just  bounds  and  does  not  allow  itself  to  be 
sullied  b}"  Communism  or  outrages,  it  has  and  will  have 
no  warmer  advocates.  In  proof  of  this  we  publish  the 
following  as  the  views  of  the  Hierarchy  of  Ireland: 

ARCHBISHOP  CROKE. 

We  are  in  a  great  many  respects  one  of  the  finest 
people  on  the  face  of  the  earth  ;  we  are  the  most  relig- 
ious, the  most  generous,  the  most  nnselfish,  the  most 
sympathetic,  and  in  many  other  respects  we  can  com- 
pare favorably  with  any  other  race  upDn-the  habitable 
globe.  We  are  also  a  patriotic  people.  By  "  patriotic'* 
I  mean  that  there  are  no  people  on  earth  who  love  their 


THE  IRISH  HIEKArwCIIY. 


329 


country  more  than  Irishmen  have  loved  theirs,  and  how 
do  I  show  this?  I  conkl  show  it  in  a  f>:reat  man  v  wavs. 
I  have  met  men  of  our  race  in  almost  every  country  in 
the  world,  and  wherever  I  found  them  far  away,  I 
found  that  their  devotion  to  the  country  of  their  birth 
was  even  more  intense  than  when  thev  were  at  liome. 
1  have  known  people  who  came  to  visit  Ireland  after 
beino:  tenor  fifteen  or  twenty  A'ears  away  from  it — I 
have  known  them,  at  much  inconvenience  to  themselves, 
to  carr}^  back  some  of  the  soil  or  some  other  little 
souvenir  of  their  native  land. 

As  to  the  Land  League  movement,  it  is  not  a  revolu- 
tionary movement  in  the  strict  sense  of  the  word.  It 
is  a  constitutional  movement ;  it  is  a  lawful  movement. 
It  is  a  movement  which  vve  intend  to  push  forward  by 
moral  force  alone.  AVe  do  not  intend  to  violate  anv  law; 
we  intend  to  exhaust  all  constitutional  remedies.  We 
are  perfectly  certain  that  the  elasticity  of  theConstitutipn 
will  allow  us  the  means  of  working  energetically  to  the 
last,  and  finally  achievimir  tlie  result  we  aim  at.  We 
wish  to  produce  the  effect  upon  England,  not  by 
physical  force  or  by  any  manifestations  of  physical 
force,  but  by  moral  means. 

We  want  to  make  our  grievances  known  before  the 
entire  world,  to  tell  France  and  Spain  and  Italy  and 
the  United  States  and  the  great  colonies  that  acknowl- 
edge the  sway  of  Great  Britain  that  as  in  this  country 
we  have  been  kept  down  by  bayonets  to  the  present 
time,  and  as  by  bayonets  we  are  kept  down  at  present, 
please  God,  we  are  now  fully  determined,  bayonets  or  no 
bayonets,  to  proclaim  at  all  events  our  wants,  and  to  pro- 
claim that  we  will  not  be  satisfied  until  we  get  our  rights, 
and  that  we  will  enlist  on  our  behalf,  not  the  swords 
nor  the  guns  nor  the  cannon  of  France  or  of  Spain  or 
of  Italy  or  of  tlie  United-  States,  but  tlie  intelligent 
opinion  of  all  the  intelligent  nations  of  the  earth. 


330 


IRELAXD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 


Therefore  tliis  is  not  a  revolutionary  movement, 
nor  is  it  an  irreligious  movement,  because  it  is  con- 
ducted by  the  most  religious  i^eople  in  the  world,  and 
backed  up  by  the  best,  the  most  holy,  the  most  sel- 
sacrificing,  the  most  faithful,  and  the  most  uncom- 
promising priesthood  in  the  world.  It  is  not  an  unjust 
movement,  calculated  or  designed  to  do  injury  to  any- 
body. We  repudiate  that  charge.  We  say  that  we  do 
not  intend  to  do  injury  to  any  mortal  man.  We  recog- 
nize the  rights  ot*  the  owner  of  the  soil,  and  we  recognize 
our  own  ri^rhts  at  the  same  time,  and  while  we  aive  to 
Ccesar  the  things  that  are  Csesar's,  we  will  assert  for 
ourselves  the  things  that  are  ours. 

THE  PATRIOT  BISHOP  OF  MEATH. 

Bishop  Nulty  in  an  address  said:  We  do  not  want 
injustice  or  wrong;  we  want  no  more  of  these  things,  as 
hitherto  in  Ireland  w^e  had  nothing  but  tyranny  and 
oi:)pression.  We  will  stand  this  no  longer;  too  long 
have  we  borne  with  it.  We  are  determined  now  to 
persevere  until  the  soil  of  the  countr\"  shall  be  owned 
by  the  people — to  j)ersevere  until  no  man  shall  have  the 
power  any  longer  to  evict  the  people  who  are  able  and 
willing  to  live  in  the  land  of  their  birth.  Besides  the 
few  points  and  principles  of  equity  introduced  into  the 
bill,  there  were  a  number  of  qualifications  and  provisos 
appended  in  exact  antagonism  to  the  principles  of 
the  bill.  Our  object  is  to  eliminate  these  things.  If 
the  main  principles  of  the  Land  Bill  were  carried  out 
without  being  hampered  by  any  restrictions  or  excep- 
tions, his  belief  was  that  it  would  be  a  good  one,  and 
would  go^lar  to  secure  a  measure  of  justice,  fair  play, 
and  loyalty  to  the  people  of  Ireland.  They  did  not 
wish  to  be  disloyal.  They  wished  to  be  allowed  to  re- 
main in  peace  and  occupy  the  land  of  their  birth. 


THE  IRISH  IIIERArwCIIY. 


331 


The  highest  and  noblest  title  a  man  can  have  is  to 
be  an  honest  and  improving  tenant,  and  if  a  man  be 
cheated  out  of  that,  he  has  a  right  before  high  heaven 
to  defend  and  maintain  it.  The  Irish  members  of 
Parliament  had  taken  a  peculiar  action  regarding  the 
'Land  Bill.  It  was  necessary  for  them  to  take  an  in- 
dependent action,  and  they  were  Justified  in  doing  so. 
The  people  of  Ireland  had  now  a  great  power  in  the 
Land  League  to  combine,  and  when  they  do  so  legally 
and  justly  there  was  no  force  on  earth  to  withstand 
them.  Already  they  had  made  the  landlords  feel  that. 
It  was  better  to  settle  the  land  question  now  than  to 
go  on  in  the  old  way  of  toil  unrequited,  hopes  blasted, 
and  disappointment.  The  landlords  felt  now  as  if  part- 
ing  with  their  hearts'  blood  in  acceding  to  a  measure  of 
justice  long  delayed  to  tlieir  tenants.  But  they  must 
give  it  up  even  to  the  last  drop. 

Let  them  conduct  all  their  actions  according  to  law, 
peace,  and  order — with  no  injustice,  no  outrage,  no  stain 
on  their  moral  character.  Let  them  never  give  up  the 
Land  League  organization  until  the  peoi)le  are  allowed 
to  live  in  peace  and  prosperity  in  the  country  where 
God  placed  them.  The  Land  Bill  was  certainly  a  great 
measure  of  justice,  but  it  should  be  amended,  and  it 
would,  he  trusted. 

Kegarding  the  arrest  of  Father  Sheehy,  his  Lordship 
said  that  he  did  not  know  that  patriotic  priest.  He  well 
knew  the  illustrious  Archbishop  of  Cashel,  and  read 
what  he  had  said  of  the  imprisoned  clergyman.  He  well 
knew  that  Dr.  Croke  would  not  say  one  word  if  he  did 
not  absolutely  believe  in  its  truth,  and  therefore  he  said 
that  Father  Sheehy  was  a  good  and  a  patriotic  priest, 
wdio emulated  the  priests  of  old  in  offering  up  their  lives 
for  their  people.  He  (Dr.  Nulty)  in  heart  and  soul 
emphatically  condemned  the  government  in  arresting 
and  imprisoning  him.    What  did  it  matter?    Let  them 


332 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 


now  arrest  bishops  and  priests.  He  would  gladly 
follow  Father  Sheehy.  It  would  be  a  relief  to  him 
if  he  was  taken  up  by  the  minions  of  the  gov- 
tn-nmenl  and  put  in  jail.  It  was  no  disgrace  for  a 
bishop  or  a  priest  to  be  put  in  jail.  One  of  the  greatest, 
men  in  Irehmd — Archbisliop  O' Hurley  of  Cashel — was 
hunted  like  a  wolf  by  the  English  government.  He 
fled  to  the  qld  Castle  of  Fennon,  close  b}^,  then  owned 
by  the  Flemmings,  where  he  got  a  warm  refuge.  He  was 
discovered,  dragged  out  of  it,  and  brought  a  jirisoner 
to  Dublin,  where  he  suffered  a  most  painful  and  cruel 
death.  He  suffered  martvrdom  and  died  for  his  coun- 
try.  The  reason  Father  Sheehy  was  imprisoned  was 
because  he  loved  his  country.  It  was  no  disgrace  to 
suffer  imnrisonment  in  old  Ireland.  His  Lordship  acrain 
expressed  his  acknowledgements  for  the  high  honor 
done  him.  He  was  prepared  to  do  everything— to  lay 
down  his  life  if  need  be — for  his  people. 

The  Most  Rev.  Dr.  McEvilly,  Coadjutor- Archbishop 
of  Tuam,  in  his  Lenten  pastoral,  says  : 

"While  the  great  bulk  of  our  people  are  allowed  to 
live  in  the  land  of  their  birtli,  in  most  cases,  on  mere 
sufferance;  while  they  are  kept  in  constant  dread,  so 
far  as  the  protection  of  lavy  is  concerned,  of  being  the 
victims,  in  many  instances,  of  plunder  and  spoliation; 
while,  in  a  state  of  anxious  uncertainty,  they  have  cause 
to  dread,  in  many  cases,  being  turned  adrift  at  the  whim 
of  irresponsible  power,  and  of  forfeiting  the  fruit  of 
long  toil  and  outlay,  which  is  in  reality  for  thousands 
a  question  of  life  and  death, — can  they  in  any  sense. of 
the  word  be  res-arded  as  free?  While  they  see  before 
their  eye  the  laborer  defrauded  of  his  hire  on  a  gigantic 
scale — what  else  can  we  term  compelling  men  to  pay 
in  ever-increasing  rents  for  the  fruits  of  their  hard 
industry? 


THE  IRISH  HIERARCHY.  333 
THE  MOST  REV.  DR.  GILLOOLY  ON  THE  CRISIS. 

In  liis  Lenten  pa.storal  the  Most  Rev.  Dr.  Gillooll y, 
Lord  Bishop  of  Elphin,  thus  refers  to  the  present 
political  situation: 

In  the  very  critical  condition  in  which  our  country 
is  now  placed,  we  feel  it  our  duty  to  give  advice  to  our 
beloved  diocesans  on  certain  duties  whicli  they  ought 
presently  to  fuHil,  and  also  on  certain  dangers  against 
which  they  should  carefully  guard  themselves.    In  the 
course  of  the  irast  year,  at  our  conferences  and  visita- 
tions, we  spoke,  very  reverend  and  reverend  fathers, 
to  you  and  your  flocks,  in  the  plainest  terms,  on  the 
organized  agitation  which  was  being  carried  on  amongst 
you  and  around  you  by  the  Land  League.  Whilst 
deeply  sympathizing  with  the  tenant  class  in  their 
great  losses  and  sufferings,  and  cordially  approving  the 
efforts  they  are  making  to  improve  their  relations  with 
their  landlord,  we  could  not  in  duty  refrain  from  con- 
demning several  acts  of  injustice  and  intimidation 
which  had  occurred — apparently  in  connection  with 
the  Land  League  organization.    We  then  warned  our 
beloved  people  against  all  violent  and  illegal  means  of 
redress;  and  predicted,  as  it  was  easy  to  do,  that  il- 
lec^al  and  defiant  proceedings  such  as  we  condemned 
w^ould  certainly  lead  to  coercive  legislation,  and  pos- 
sibly deprive  the  present  generation  of  tenants  of  the 
remedial  measures  which  had  been  promised  to  them. 
We  now  see,  to  our  deep  regret,  a  beginning  of  the 
evils  we  apprehended  in  the  Coercion  Bill  which  has 
been  so  eagerly  and  unanimously  adopted  by  Parlia- 
ment;  and  looking  to   the  angrj^  vindictive  spirit 
aroused  amongst  the  upper  classes  in  England  against 
the  land  agitation  and  its  promoters,  we  see  great 
reason  to  fear  that  not  only  will  all  legislation  favor- 
able to  the  people  be  defeated,  but  that  the  landlord 


334 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


class  will  be  furnished  with  new  means  of  oppression; 
that  they  will  reassert  and  enforce  their  claims  with 
renewed  severity,  and  that  the  people  will  be  again 
victimized  by  fines,  imprisonments,  and  evictions. 

We  have  had  ample  evidence  of  the  desi:)otic  temper 
of  a  Liberal  House  of  Commons;  we  have  seen  the 
House  of  Lords  maintain  its  traditiona'  liDStilirv  to  the 
tiller  of  the  soil;  numerous  and  convincmg  proofs  have 
also  been  supplied  to  us  of  the  rigor  with  which  the 
orders  of  the  iirovernment  and  the  decrees  of  the  laws 
will  be  henceforth  executed.  In  view  of  such  facts, 
and  with  such  means  of  forecasting  tlie  future,  what 
honest  man,  if  he  be  of  sound  mind,  can  still  believe 
in  the  success  of  violent  and  illegal  remedies?  Who 
but  an  enemy  can  still  advocate  or  recommend  them? 

THE  BISHOP  OF  ACHONRY. 

The  Most  Rev.  Dr.  F.  J.  MacCormack,  Lord  Bishop 
of  Achonry,  says: 

We  have  passed  into  another  year  and  approach  an- 
other Lent,  but  the  deep  shadow  of  sorrow  is  still  cast 
over  our  troubled  land.  Distress  still  hovers  over 
the  country,  and  it  remains  to  be  seen  how  the  poor 
laborers  and  small  farmers  may  eke  out  an  existence 
during  the  ensuing  spring  and  summer.  The  clouds  of 
discontent  thicken  apace,  and  the  outlook  seems  more 
gloomy  day  by  day.  The  fortunes  of  our  poor  country 
ar^  now  in  the  uncertain  balance  of  a  foreign  legisla- 
ture, to  be  cast  at  the  beck  of  British  ministers.  Dis- 
content and  disloyalty  may  be  now  perpetuated  in  this 
ill-used  country,  or  on  the  other  hand,  one  of  the  great 
wounds  of  Ireland  may  now  be  healed  up  and  the  feel- 
ing of  unrest  be  quickly  abated.  The  pressing  evil  of 
tl)e  iniquitous  land  system  of  Ireland  has  been 
brought  to  the  front,  and  in  its  presence  other  Irish 


THE  IRISH  HIEEAPXHY. 


335 


grievances  are  hushed  for  the  moment.  In  this 
momentous  crisis  of  our  unhappy  nation  it  behooves 
clergy  and  people  to  unite  in  prayer  to  the  Giver  of  all 
good,  that  he  may  inspire  British  legislators  with 
wisdom  and  justice  at  a  moment  when  great  national 
interests  hang  in  the  balance. 

The  land  grievance  of  Ireland  is  admitted  by  all  just 
men,  and  the  wonder  is  that  any  people  with  an  in- 
stinct of  honest  manliness  could  have  borne  a  cruel, 
transparent,  and  systematic  wrong  so  long  and  so 
patiently.  The  earnest  appeal  for  redress  has  at  length 
gone  forth,  a  combined  effort  to  resist  injustice  is  now 
made  in  every  province  in  Ireland — in  the  black  North 
as  well  as  in  the  snnnv  South.  AVe  mav  rest  assured 
tha*;  an  urgent,  persevering  appeal  for  justice  cannot 
and  will  not  be  disregarded  when  it  emanates  from 
Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic — from  a  body  of  "united 
Irishmen"  determined  ro  gain  their  point  because 
justice  is  on  their  side.  But  with  that  thorough  per- 
severance  should  be  united  an  earnest  endeavor  to  dis- 
countenance the  employment  of  every  illegal  means  in 
working  out  this  all- important  social  reform.  Let 
coercion  do  its  worst,  it  can  never  prevail  in  quenching 
the  claims  of  justice  or  silencing  the  spirit  of  eainest- 
ness  which  is  now  abroad. 

The  eves  of  manv  nations  are  now  watchiri?  the  re- 
suit  of  the  Irish  land  movement^ eagerly  awaiting  the 
next  move  of  the  British  Government  on  the  land 
question,  and  how  our  poor  country  will  fare  at  their 
hands  at  this  supreme  moment.  The  United  States  of 
America  particularly  regard  the  struggle  wirh  deep 
and  sympathetic  interest.  They  see  with  regret  "the 
substitution  of  the  methods  of  tyranny  for  the  i)eace- 
ful  processof  conciliation"  tostifle  the  voice  of  Ireland 
and  paralyze  her  action.  And  they  suggest  that  ''if 
the  British  Parliament  is  unable  or  unwilling  to  apply 


336 


IRELAND,  TAST  AND  PRESENT. 


an  efficient  remedy  to  tlie  cancer  that  is  eating  away 
the  life  of  a  nation,"  it  is  tlie  duty  of  England  to  remit 
the  cure  of  the  evil  to  the  people  of  Ireland  themselves. 
We  exhort  both  clergy  and  i)eople  to  hold  together, 
r.nited  in  sentiment  and  action,  in  this  trying  crisis  of 
o;ir  country.  The  clergy  of  Ireland  owe  a  deep  debt 
of  loyalty  to  their  faithful  Hocks,  and  as  long  as  the 
people  pursue  the  paths  of  justice  and  equity  the  clergy 
shall  be  ever  found  bv  their  side.  If  the  British  orov 
ernment  would  only  make  an  honest  effort  to  redress 
the  glaring  grievances  under  which  our  poor  people 
have  suffered  for  ages  in  unparalleled  misery,  they  may 
count  upon  a  nation's  loyalty  and  the  cordial  good 
will  of  every  true  Irishman.  But  coercion,  in  and  out 
of  Parliament,  of  the  people  and  of  the  people's 
representatives  takes  the  lead  of  redress,  even  in  the 
full  noonday  of  admitted  wrongs — such  coercion  as 
w'ds  never  heard  of  before,  exasperating  in  the  highest 
degree,  in  every  shape  and  form  that  ingenuity  could 
devise. 

THE  BISHOP  OF  CLOGIIER. 

The  Most  Rev.  Dr.  Donnelly,  Lord  Bishop  of  Clogher, 
refers  thus  to  the  land  question: 

It  is  with  feelings  of  more  than  ordinary  anxiety  we 
address  you  at  the  present  juncture.  Our  country 
presents  at  this  moment,  to  the  empire  and  the  world, 
a  spectacle  of  social  upheaving  calculated  to  inspire  all 
of  us  with  the  gravest  disquietude.  After  being  res- 
cued bv  the  cliaritv  of  the  world — chiefiv,  no  doubt, 
of  our  kith  and  kin — from  the  jaws  of  a  terrible  famine, 
which  would  have  been  the  second  within  a  generation, 
the  Irish  people  have  risen  from  their  letharg}^  and, 
joining  together  in  lawful  combination,  have  pro- 
claimed tliat  they  siiall  no  lonf]rer  submit  to  conditions 
of  life  which  keep  the  bulk  of  them  in  a  state  of  chronic 


THE  IRISH  HIERARCHY. 


337 


abasement  and  misery,  to  be  turned  into  tlie  horrors 
of  a  national  famine  by  the  failure  of  a  single  esculent. 
Is  it  not  time  such  a  state  of  things  should  end,  and 
that  Irishmen,  patterns  of  industry,  thrift,  loyalty, 
and  prosperity  in  every  foreign  land,  should  no  longer 
be  kept  in  a  perpetual  struggle  between  life  and  death 
on  this  island  which  God  has  given  for  their  suppoi  t  ? 
.  We  have  been  calling  on  the  legislature  to  rescue  us 
from  land  laws  ^vhich  condemn  our  people  to  starva- 
tion and  degradation;  and  now,  for  the  hundredth  time, 
our  appeal  is  responded  to  by  coercion  acts  and  arm 
acts.  And  is  this  to  goon  for  ever?  Are  we  to  be 
left  still  preaching  patience  to  a  starving  multitude, 
loyalty  and  submission  to  a  people  for  whom  law  is 
but  organized  oppression,  confiscation,  exi^atriation  ! 
We  have  hopes  that  this  may  not  be  so,  and  that 
counsels  of  humanity  and  prudence  may  at  length  pre- 
vail; but  the  future  is  in  the  hands  of  God.  Whilst 
we  ask  the  clergy  to  impress  on  their  flocks  the  neces- 
sity of  prudence,  moderation,  and  charity  in  the  pres- 
ent agitation,  and  the  need  of  keeping  strictly  within 
the  laws  of  God  and  his  Church,  and  the  civil  law  as 
well,  we  call  on  priests  and  people  to  join  with  us,  at 
this  supreme  moment,  in  making  an  earnest  appeal  to 
Almighty  God  that  he  may  move  the  hearts  of  your 
rulers  and  legislators  to  send  at  length  a  message  of 
relief  to  a  long-suffering  nation.  For  this  purpose  we 
ordain  that  the  clergy  and  faithful  of  this  diocese  do 
enter  on  a  novena,  or  nine  days  of  devotional  exercises, 
beginning  with  the  9th  and  ending  with  the  17th  day 
of  March,  the  feast  of  our  national  apostle. 

THE  BISHOP  OF  CLONFERT. 

The  Most  Kev.  Dr.  Duggan,  Lord  Bishop  of 
Clonfert,  in  his  Lenten  pastoral,  thus  refers  to  the 
present  crisis: 


338 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


It  is  earnestly  hoped  tliat  Parliament  will  soon,  by 
wise,  vigorous,  and  incisive  legislation,  put  an  end  for- 
ever to  this  burning  land  agitation — an  agitation  tbat 
will  not  cease  to  exercise  the  public  mind  in  some  form 
or  another  until  hnally  settled  on  principles  in  con- 
formity with  the  eternal  laws  of  equity  and  justice. 
The  condition  of  the  laboring  poor  and  artisan  cUisses 
in  this  as  in  other  towns  is  this  year  simply  deplorable. 
The  si-vUie  is  to  be  said  of  nniiibers  of  the  small  holders 
of  land  throufjhout  this  diocese.  The  failure  of  the 
potato  crop  affects  those  classes  in  a  special  manner. 
For  large  numbers  of  them  we  see  no  alternativ-e  but 
starvation,  or  a  judicious  outlay  in  out-door  relief,  com- 
bined with  emx)ioyment  on  works  of  public  utility. 
The  rigid  a])plication  of  the  work-house  test  to  able- 
bodied  members  of  families,  involving  the  eternal  dis- 
ruption of  home  ties,  in  seasons  of  exceptional  severity, 
would  be  simply  inhuman.  As  the  duties  entrusted 
by  the  legislature  to  those  charged  with  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  poor-laws  are  being  more  and  more  ex- 
tended year  after  year,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind 
both  by  the  rate-paying  electors  and  guardians  that 
their  responsibilities  are  become  proportionately  in- 
creased— hence,  amons:  other  matters,  the  duty  on  both 
to  endeavor  to  temper  economy  with  a  judicious  and 
humane  regard  to  the  condition  of  the  indigent.  It 
would  be  impossible  to  find  words  to  adequately  ex- 
press our  thanks  to  the  munificent  benefactors  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  who  came  to  the  relief  of  the 
famine-stricken  poor  of  our  locality  during  last  year. 
We  take  this  opportunity  of  again  expressing  our 
fieartfelt  acknowledgments.  Let  us  hope  the  time  is 
not  far  distant  when  there  will  be  an  end  of  such 
mendicancy. 


I 


THE  IKISII  IIIERARCriY.  339 
THE  BISHOP  OF  DOWN. 

• 

The  Right  Rev.  Dr.  Dorrian,  Bishop  of  Down  and 
Connor,  in  his  Lenten  pastoral,  deals  at  length  with 
the  land  question  and  the  present  crisis  in  Ireland. 
So  far  as  he  nnderstood  the  present  agitation,  he  could 
see  nothing  in  its  principles  opposed  to  an  equitable 
settlement  of  the  land  question  on  the  most  consti- 
tutional lines.  He  condemned  the  coercive  legislation 
of  the  government  as  unstatesmanlike,  irritating,  and 
illogical.  Coercion  was  the  weapon  of  the  tyrant,  not 
a  remedy  for  hungering  multitudes.  It  must  2>i*oduce 
hatred,  not  love;  and  terror  would  not  lead  to  willing 
obedience  of  the  law.  In  conclusion,  he  counseled  his 
flock  to  continue  to  discuss  their  grievances  and  keep 
within  the  law  until  redress  was  constitutionally  ob- 
tained. 

THE  IRISH  HIERARCHY. 

Their  Address  to  the  People  of  Ireland. 

The  following  is  the  full  text  of  the  address  of  the 
Catholic  Archbishops  and  Bishops  of  Ireland,  as- 
sembled in  Dublin,  June  10th,  1882,  to  their  Hocks: 

In  the  social  crisis  through  which  Ireland  is  now- 
passing,  which  must  long  and  deeply  affect  moral  as 
well  as  material  interests,  you  have  a  right  to  expect 
that  your  Bishops  would  give  you  advice  and  direction, 
.   and  help  to  remove  those  perplexities  with  which  the 
most  enlightened  as  well  as  the  best-disposed  are  now 
beset.    Pressed  by  the  duty  we  owe  you  in  this  con-  j 
juncture,  and  anxious  beyond  expression  for  your  1 
temporal  as  well  as  for  your  spiritual  welfare,  we  have 
considered,  at  our  meeting,  among  other  subjects,  the 
present  condition  of  our  beloved  country;  and  we  now 
hasten  to  communicate  to  you  the  result  of  those  de- 
liberations. 


340 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


Let  US  premise  that,  in  forming  our  judgments,  we 
have  been  influenced  chiefly  bv  the  consideration  of 
your  spiritual  interests,  and  have  been  solely  guided  by 
the  dictates  of  conscience,  and  by  the  ever-just  and 
beneficent  law  of  God.  To  3'ou,  the  devoted  children 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  enlightened  by  faitli  and 
obedient  to  the  divine  [)recept  of  seeking  ''first  the 
kingdom  of  God  and  his  justice" — to  you,  as  to  our- 
selves, it  is  and  must  be  an  undoubted  truth  that  in  all 
questions,  social  and  political,  as  well  as  religious,  the 
law  of  God  is  our  supreme  and  infallible  rule;  that 
what  is  morally  wrong  cannot  be  politically  right;  and 
that  an  act  which  God  forbids  us  to  do  cannot  possibly 
benefit  either  ourselves  or  our  country. 

Applying  those  principles  to  events  every  day  oc- 
curring around  us,  and  to  the  important  questions 
Avhich  now  absorb  tlie  attention  of  our  people,  we  see 
dangers  against  which  we  must  raise  our  warning  voice, 
and  not  a  few  excesses  which  we  must  deeply  lament 
and  unequivocally  condemn. 

It  is  true  that  on  religious  as  ^vell  as  political  grounds, 
it  is  the  indisputable  rigid  of  Irishmen  to  live  on  and 
by  their  own  fertile  soil^  and  be  free  to  employ  the 
resources  of  their  country  for  their  own  profit.  Ifc 
is,  moreover,  the  admitted  right,  and  often  tlie  dtity, 
of  those  who  suffer  oppression,  either  from  indi- 
viduals or  from  the  state,  to  seek  redress  b}'  every 
law^ful  means;  and  to  help  in  obtaining  such  redress 
is  a  noble  work  of  justice  and  charity.  On  ihese 
grounds  it  is,  that  the  object  of  our  national  move- 
ment has  had  the  approval  and  blessing  not'  only 
of  your  priests  and  bishops,  but  of  the  Sovereign 
Pontiff  himself,  and  has  been  applauded  in  our  own 
and  foreign  countries  by  all  men  of  just  and  generous 
minds,  without  distinction  of  race  or  creed.  It  must, 
however,  be  well  known  to  you,  as,  indeed,  it  is  to 


THE  IKISH  HIERARCHY. 


341 


the  world  at  large,  that  in  the  pursuit  of  your  legiti- 
mate aims  means  have  been  from  time  to  time  employed 
which  are  utterly  subversive  of  social  order,  and  op- 
posed to  the  dictates  of  justice  and  charity.  It  is  to 
these  unlawful  means  we  desire  to  direct  your  attention, 
and  especially  to  the  following: 

1st — Refusing  to  pay  just  debts  when  able  to  pay 
them. 

2d — Preventing  others  from  paying  their  just  debts. 
3d — Injuring  the  neighbor  in  his  person,  his  rights, 
or  property. 

4th — Forcibly  resisting  the  law  and  those  charged 
with  its  administration,  or  inciting  others  to  do  so. 

5th — Forming  secret  associations  for  the  promotion 
of  the  above  or  other  like  objects,  or  obeying  the  orders 
of  such  condemned  associations. 

Under  each  of  these  heads  numerous  offenses,  all 
more  or  less  criminal,  have  been  committed,  fearfully 
prominent  amongst  them  being  the  hideous  crime  of 
mnrder,  which,  even  at  the  moment  we  address  you, 
horrifies  the  public  conscience,  disgraces  our  country, 
and  provokes  the  anger  of  the  Almighty.  Against  all 
and  each  of  these  offenses  we  most  solemnly  protest  in 
the  name  of  God  and  of  his  Church;  and  we  declare 
it  to  be  your  duty  to  regard  as  the  worst  enemy  of  our 
creed  and  country  the  man  who  would  recommend  or 
justify  the  commission  of  any  of  them.  We  solemnly 
appeal  to  all  our  flocks,  especially  to  the  youth  of  both 
sexes,  not  only  to  have  no  connection  with  secret 
societies,  but  to  condemn  and  oppose  them  as  being 
ho&tile  alike  to  religion  and  to  social  freedom  and 
progress. 

Let  us  now  assure  you  that  the  national  movement, 
purged  from  what  is  criminal,  and  guarded  against 
what  leads  to  crime,  shall  have  our  earnest  support,  and 
that  of  our  clergy. 


342  IHELAND,  PAST  AND  PREST=:NT. 

A  considerable  installment  of  justice  has  within  the 
last  few  years  been  given  to  the.  tenant-farmers  of 
Ireland.  To  them,  and  to  other  classes  of  our  country- 
men^  especially  to  the  laboring  class,  m/uch  more  is  due; 
and  it  is  your  duty  and  ours  to  press  our  claims  until 
they  are  conceded.  In  eveiy  peaceful  and  just  move- 
nient  of  yours  the  clergy  shall  be  with  you,  to  guide, 
and  if  necessary  to  restrain  you;  but  you  must  not 
expect  them  to  do  what  in  conscience  they  condemn. 
They  cannot  be  the  sowers  of  hatied  and  dissension 
amongst  their  flocks.  They  cannot  under  any  j^retext 
tolerate,  much  less  countenance,  lawlessness  and  dis- 
order. They  will  work  manfully  with  and  for  you,  but 
in  the  liglit  ot*  day,  with  lawful  arms,  and  for  just  and 
laudable  objects;  and  we  feel  assured  that  your  filinJ 
obedience  to  their  instructions,  and  to  the  admonitions 
given  in  this  brief  address,  will  bring  down  the  Divine 
blessing  on  our  country,  save  it  from  the  evils  with 
Avhichitis  threatened,  and  lead  it  sx)eedily  toprosperit}-- 
and  i)eace. 

Before  concluding,  we  feel  it  our  duty  to  declare, 
without  in  any  sense  meaning  to  excuse  the  crimes  and 
offenses  we  have  condemned,  that,  in  onir  belief,  these 
woiild  never  hare  occurred  had  not  the  people  been 
driven  to  despair  by  evictions  and  the  prospect  of 
evictions  for  the  non-pay ment  of  exorbitant  rents; 
and  furthermore,  that  the  continuance  of  sucli 
evictions,  justly  designated  by  rlie  Prime  Minister  of 
England  as  "sentences  of  death,"  must  be  a  fatal, 
permanent  ^provocative  to  crime,  and  that  il  is  the 
duty  of  all  friends  of  social  order,  and  especially  of 
the  government,  to  put  an  end  to  them  as  s^^eedily  as 
possible,  and  at  any  cost. 

Earnestly  beseeching  our  loving  Lord  to  bestow  on 
you  and  on  our  afflicted  country  the  wisdom,  piety, 
and  fortitude  of  his  Divine  Spirit,  and  to  teach  you  to 


THE  IKI8H  IIIEKAllCHY. 


343 


prefer  the  treasures  of  his  grace  to  all  the  goods  of 
this  earth,  we  heartily  impart  to  you  our  pastoral 
blessing. 
[Signed] 

Edward  Caiidinal  M'Cabe,  Arclibisliop  of  Dublin  and  Primate  of 
Ireland. 

Daniel  M'Gettigan,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  Primate  of  All 
Ireland. 

Thomas  W.  Croke,  Archbishop  of  Cash  el,  etc. 

John  MacEvilly,  Archbishop  of  Tuam,  etc. 

William  Delaney,  Bishop  of  Cork. 

Francis  Kelly,  Bishop  of  Den  y. 

J,  P.  Leahy,  Bisliop  of  Dromore. 

James  Walsh,  Bishop  of  Kildare  and  Leighlin. 

Lawrence  Gillooly,  Bishop  of  Elphin. 

Michael  Flannery.  Bishop  of  Killaloe. 

Patrick  Dorrian,  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor. 

George  Butler.  Bishop  of  Limerick. 

Nicholas  Conaty,  Bishop  of  Kilmore. 

Tho.mas  Nulty,  Bishop  of  Meath, 

James  Donnelly,  Bishop  of  Clogher. 

James  Lynch,  Coadjutor  Bishop  of  Kildare  and  Leighlin. 

Patrick  Duggan,  Bishop  of  Clonfert. 

Hugh  Conway,  Bishop  of  Killala. 

F.  J.  M'CoRMACK,  Bishop  of  Achonry. 

James  Ryan.  Coadjutor  Bishop  of  Kilalloe. 

Patrick  F.  Moran,  Bishop  of  Ossory. 

John  Power.  Bishop  of  Waterford  and  Lismore. 

John  McCarthy,  Bishop  of  Cloyne. 

Michael  Warren.  Bishop  of  Ferns. 

William  Fitzgerald,  Bishop  of  Ross. 

Bartholomew  Woodlock,  Bishop  of  Ardagh  and  ClonmacDoise. 
Michael  Logue,  Bishop  of  Raphoe. 
Andrew  Higgins,  Bishop  of  Kerry. 


344 


IllELAXD,  PAST  AND  PllESEXT. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE  UNIOJT. 

Articles  of  Union  between  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land— An  Act  for  the  Union  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland. 

The  following  are  tlie  Articles  of  Union  between 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland: 

THE  ARTICLES  OF  UNION  BETWEEN  GREAT  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND. 

Resolved,  1.  That  in  order  to  promote  and  secure  the  es- 
pential  interests  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  consolidate 
the  strength,  power,  and  resources  of  the  British  Empire,  it 
-vvill  be  advisable  to  concur  m  such  measures  as  may  best  tend 
to  unite  the  two  kingdoms  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  into 
one  kingdom,  in  such  manner,  and  on  such  terms  and  condi- 
tions, as  may  be  established  by  the  acts  of  the  respective  Par- 
liaments of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

Itesolved^  2.  That  for  the  purpose  of  establishing  a  Union 
upon  the  basis  stated  in  the  resolution  of  the  two  Houses  of 
Parliament  of  Great  Britain,  communicated  by  His  Majesty's 
command  in  the  message  sent  to  this  House  by  His  Excellency 
the  Lord-Lieutenant,  it  would  be  fit  to  propose  as  the  first 
article  of  Union,  that  the  kinofdoms  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
'  land  shall  upon  the  first  day  of  January  which  shall  be  in 
the  vear  of  our  Lord  one  thousand  eiirht  hundred  and  one, 
and  forever  after,  be  united  in  one  kingdom,  by  the  name  of 
the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  and  that 
the  royal  style  and  titles  appertaining  to  the  Imperial  Crown 
of  the  said  United  Kingdom  and  its  dependencies,  and  altso 


AETICLES  OF  UNION. 


345 


the  ensigns,  armorial  flags,  and  banners  thereof,  shall  be  such 
as  His  Majest}'  by  his  royal  proclamation  under  the  Great 
Seal  of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  be  pleased  to  appoint. 

Resolvedy  3.  That  for  the  same  purpose,  it  would  be  lit  to 
propose,  that  the  succession  to  the  Imperial  Crown  of  the  said 
Uniled  Kingdom,  and  of  the  dominions  thereunto  belonging, 
shall  continue  limited  and  settled  in  the  same  manner  as  the 
succession  to  the  Imperial  Crown  of  the  said  kingdoms  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  now  stands  limited  and  settled,  ac- 
cording to  the  existing  laws,  and  to  the  terms  of  the  Union 
between  England  and  Scotland. 

Mesolvedy  4.  That  for  the  same  purpose,  it  would  be  fit  to 
propose,  that  the  said  United  Kingdom  be  represented  in  one 
and  the  same  Parliament,  to  be  styled  the  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland. 

JResolved,  5.  That  for  the  same  purpose,  it  would  be  fit  to 
propose,  that  the  charge  arising  from  the  payment  of  the  in- 
terest and  sinking  fund  for  the  reduction  of  the  principal  of 
the  debt  incurred  in  either  kingdom  before  the  Union,  sliall 
continue  to  he  separately  defrayed  by  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 
land respectively. 

That  for  the  space  of  twenty  years  after  the  Union  shall 
take  place,  the  contribution  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  re- 
spectively, towards  the  expenditure  of  the  United  Kingdom  in 
each  year,  shall  be  defrayed  in  the  proportion  of  fifteen  parts 
for  Great  Britain  and  two  parts  for  Ireland;  that  at  the  expi- 
ration of  the  said  twenty  years,  the  future  expenditure  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  other  than  the  interest  and  charges  of  the 
debt  to  which  either  country  shall  be  separately  liable,  shall  be 
defrayed  in  such  proportion  as  the  said  United  Parliament  shall 
deem  just  and  reasonable,  upon  a  comparison  of  the  real  value 
of  the  exports  and  imports  of  the  respective  countries  upon 
an  average  of  the  three  years  next  preceding  the  period  of  re- 
vision, or  on  a  comparison  of  the  value  of  the  quantities  of 
the  following  articles  consumed  within  the  respective  coun- 
tries, on  a  similar  average,  viz.,  beer,  spirits,  sugar,  wine,  tea, 
tobacco,  and  malt;  or  according  to  the  aggregate  proportiou 


346 


IIIELA^^D,  PAST  AND  PKESEXT. 


rosulling  from  both  these  considerations  combined,  or  on  a 
comparison  of  the  amount  of  income  in  each  country,  esti- 
mated from  the  produce  for  the  same  periods  of  a  general  tax, 
if  such  shall  liave  been  imposed  on  the  same  descriptions  of 
income  in  both  countries;  and  that  the  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdoms  shall  afterwards  proceed  in  like  manner, 
to  revise  and  fix  the  said  proportions  according  to  the  same 
rules  or  any  of  them,  at  periods  not  more  distant  than  twenty 
years,  nor  less  tlian  seven  years  from  eacli  otlier,  unless  pre- 
vious to  any  such  period  the  United  Parliament  shall  have 
declared,  as  hereinafter  provided,  that  the  general  expenses  of 
the  empire  shall  be  defrayed  indiscriminately  by  equal  taxes, 
imposed  on  the  like  articles  in  both  countries. 

Resolved,  6.  That  for  defraying  the  said  expenses,  according 
to  the  rules  above  laid  down,  the  revenues  of  Ireland  shall 
hereafter  constitute  a  consolidated  fund,  upon  which  charges 
equal  to  the  interest  of  the  debt  and  sinking  fund  shall  in  the 
first  instance  be  charged,  and  the  remainder  shall  be  applied 
towards  defraying  the  proportion  of  the  general  expense  of  the 
United  Kingdom  to  which  Ireland  maybe  liable  in  each  year. 
That  the  pro}>ortion  of  contribution  to  which  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland  will  by  these  articles  be  liable,  shall  be  raised  by 
such  taxes  in  each  kingdom  respectively,  as  the  Parliament 
of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  from  time  to  time  deem  fit,  pro- 
vided always,  that  in  regulating  the  taxes  in  each  country 
by  which  their  respective  proportion  shall  be  levied,  no  article 
in  Ireland  shall  be  liable  to  be  taxed  to  anv  amount  exceedinc' 
that  which  will  be  thereafter  payable  in  England  on  the  like 
articles. 

Resolved^  7.  That  if  at  the  end  of  any  year,  any  surplus 
shall  accrue  from  the  revenues  of  Ireland,  after  defraying  the 
interest,  sinking  fund,  and  proportioned  contribution,  and  se- 
perate  charges  to  which  the  said  country  is  liable,  either  taxes 
shall  be  taken  off  the  amount  of  such  surplus,  or  the  surplus 
shall  be  applied  by  the  United  Parliament  to  local  purposes 
in  Ireland,  or  to  make  good  any  deficiency  which  may  arise 
in  lier  revenues  in  time  of  peace,  or  invested  by  the  commis- 


APwTICLES  OF  UjSTION. 


347 


sionirs  of  the  national  debt  of  Ireland  in  tl.G  funds,  to  accu- 
mulate for  the  benefit  of  Ireland  at  compound  interest,  in  case 
of  contribution  in  time  of  war.  Provided,  Tlie  surplus  so  to 
accumulate,  shall  at  no  future  period  be  suffered  to  exceed  the 
sum  of  five  millions. 

Resolved.  8.  That  all  moneys  hereafter  to  be  raised  by  loan 
in  peace  or  war,  for  the  service  of  the  United  Kingdom  by 
the  Parliament  thereof,  shall  be  considered  to  be  a  joint  debt, 
and  the  charges  thereof  shall  be  borne  by  the  respectivo 
countries  in  the  proportion  of  their  respective  contributions. 
Provided,  That  if  at  any  time  in  raising  the  respective  con- 
tributions hereby  fixed  for  each  kingdom,  the  Parliament  of 
the  United  Kingdom  shall  judge  it  fit  to  raise  a  greater  pro- 
portion of  such  respective  contributions  in  one  kingdom  within 
the  year  than  in  the  other,  or  to  set  apart  a  greater  proportion 
of  sinking  fund  for  the  liquidation  of  the  whole  or  any  part 
of  the  loan  raised  on  account  of  the  one  country  than  that 
raised  on  account  of  the  other  country,  then  such  part  of  the 
said  loan  for  the  liquidation  of  which  different  provisions  have 
been  made  for  the  respective  countries,  shall  be  kept  distinct, 
and  shall  be  borne  by  each  separately,  and  only  that  part  of 
the  said  loan  be  deemed  joint  and  common,  for  the  reduction 
of  which  the  respective  countries  shall  have  made  provision 
in  the  proportion  of  their  respective  contributions. 

Resolved,  9.  That  if  at  any  future  ^ay,  the  separate  debt 
of  each  kingdom  respectively  shall  have  been  liquidated,  or 
the  value  of  their  respective  debts  (estimated  according  to  the 
amount  of  the  interest  and  annuities  attending  the  same,  of 
the  sinking  fund  applicable  to  the  reduction  thereof,  and  the 
period  Avithin  which  the  whole  capital  of  such  debt  shall  ap- 
pear to  be  redeemable  by  such  sinking  fund),  shall  be  to  each 
other  in  the  same  proportion  with  the  resp^ective  contribu- 
tions of  each  kingdom  respectively,  or  where  the  amount  by 
which  the  \ialue  of  the  larger  of  such  debts  shall  vary  from 
such  proportion,  shall  not  exceed  otie  hundi*eth  part  of  the  said 
value;  and  if  it  shall  appear  to  the  United  Parliament,  that 
the  respective  circumstances  of  the  two  countries  will  thencd- 


348 


IllELAXD,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


forth  admit  of  their  contributing  indiscriminately,  by  equal 
taxes  imposed  on  the  same  articles  in  each,  to  the  future 
general  expense  cf  the  United  Kingdom,  it  shall  be  competent 
to  the  said  United  Parliament  to  declare,  that  all  future  ex- 
pense thenceforth  to  be  incurred,  together  with  the  interest 
and  charges  of  all  joint  debts  contracted  previous  to  such  de- 
claration, shall  be  defrayed  indiscriminately  by  equal  taxes 
imposed  on  the  same  articles  in  each  country,  and  thenceforth 
fiom  time  to  time  as  circumstances  may  require  to  impose  and 
apply  such  taxes  accordingly,  subject  only  to  such  jDarticular 
exemptions  or  abatements  in  Ireland,  and  that  part  of  Great 
Britain  called  Scotland,  as  circumstances  may  aj^pearfrom  time 
to  time  to  demand,  that  from  the  period  of  such  declaration, 
it  shall  no  longer  be  necessary  to  regulate  the  contribution  of 
the  two  countries  towards  the  future  general  expenses,  accord- 
ing to  an}^  of  the  rules  hereinbefore  provided. 

Provided^  nevertheless,  That  the  interest  or  charges  which 
may  remain  on  account  of  any  part  of  the  separate  debt  with 
which  either  countrv  is  chargreable,  and  which  siiall  not  be 
liquidated  or  consolidated  proportionately  as  above,  shall, 
until  extinguished,  continue  to  be  defrayed  by  separate  taxes 
in  each  country. 

jResolcedf  10.  That  a  sum  not  less  than  the  sum  which  has 
been  granted  by  the  Parliament  of  Ireland,  on  the  average  of 
six  years,  as  premiunfs  for  the  internal  encouragement  of 
agriculture  or  manufacture,  or  for  the  maintaining  institutions 
for  pious  and  charitable  purposes,  shall  be  applied  for  the 
period  of  twenty  years  after  the  Union  to  such  local  purposes, 
in  such  manner  as  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  shall 
direct. 

Jiesolved.  11.  That  from  and  after  the  first  day  of  January, 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  one,  all  public  revenue  arising 
from  the  territorial  dependencies  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
shall  be  applied  to  the  general  expenditure  of  ther  empire,  in 
the  proportions  of  the  respective  contributions  of  the  two 
countries. 

Hesohedy  12.  That  for  the  same  purpose  it  would  be  fit  to 


ARTICLES  OF  UNIOIS". 


349 


propose  that  lords  spiritual  of  Ireland,  and  

lords  temporal  of  Ireland,  shall  be  the  number  to  sit  and  vote 
on  the  part  of  Ireland  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  Parlia- 
ment of  the  United  Kingdom,  and  one  hundred  commoners 
(two  for  each  county  of  Ireland,  two  for  the  city  of  Cork, 
one  for  the  University  of  Trinity  College,  and  one  for  each 
of  the  thirty-one  most  considerable  cities,  towns,  and  boroughs,) 
be  the  number  to  sit  aiid  vote  on  the  part  of  Ireland,  in  the 
House  of  Commons  in  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

Resolved^  13.  That  such  acts  as  shall  be  passed  in  the  Par- 
liament of  Ireland  previous  to  the  Union,  to  regulate  the  mode 
by  wHiich  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and  the  commons  to 
serve  in  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  on  the  part  of 
Ireland,  shall  be  summoned  or  returned  to  the  said  Parliament, 
shall  be  considered  as  forming  part  of  the  treaty  of  Union, 
and  shall  be  incorporated  in  the  act  of  the  respective  Parlia- 
ments, by  which  the  said  Union  shall  be  ratified  and  estab- 
lished. 

Ilesolved,  14.  That  all  questions  touching  the  election  of  mem- 
bers to  sit  on  the  part  of  Ireland  in  the  House  of  Commons  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  shall  be  heard  and  decided  in  the  same 
manner  as  questions  touching  such  elections  in  Great  Britain 
now  are,  or  at  any  time  hereafter  shall  by  law  be  heard  and 
decided,  subject,  nevertheless,  to  such  particular  regulations 
in  respect  of  Ireland,  as  from  local  circumstances  the  Parlia- 
ment of  the  said  United  Kingdom  may  from  time  to  time 
deem  expedient. 

liesolved,  15.  Tliat  the  qualifications  in  respect  of  property 
of  the  members  elected  on  the  part  of  Ireland  to  sit  in  the 
House  of  Commons  of  the  United  Kingdom,  shall  be  respect- 
ively the  same  as  are  now  provided  by  law,  in  cases  of  elec- 
tions for  counties,  and  cities,  and  boroughs,  respectively,  in 
that  part  of  Great  Britain  called  England,  unless  any  other 
provision  shall  hereafter  be  made  in  that  respect  by  act  of  the 
Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

Resolvedy  16.  That  when  His  Majesty,  his  heirs,  or  suc- 
cessors, shall  declare  his,  her,  or  their  pleasure,  for  holding 


350 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


the  first  or  any  subsequent  Parliament  of  the  United  King- 
dom, a  proclamation  shall  issue  under  the  Great  Seal  of  tiie 
United  Kingdom,  to  cause  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal 
and  commons  who  are  to  serve  in  the  Parliament  thereof  on 
the  part  of  Ireland,  to  be  returned  in  such  manner  as  by  any 
act  of  this  present  session  of  the  Parliament  of  Ireland  shall 
be  provided;  and  that  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and 
commons  of  Great  Britian  shall  together  with  the  lords 
spiritual  and  temporal  and  commons  so  returned  as  aforesaid, 
on  the  part  of  Ireland,  constitute  the  two  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment of  the  United  Kinsrdom. 

Itesolved,  17.  That  if  His  Majesty  on  or  before  the  first 
day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight  liundred  and  one,  on 
wiiich  day  the  Union  is  to  take  place,  shall  declare,  under 
the  Great  Seal  of  Great  Britain,  tliat  it  is  expedient  that  the 
lords  and  commons  of  the  present  Parliament  of  Great  Bri- 
tain should  be  members  of  tiie  respective  Houses  of  the  first 
Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  on  the  part  of  Great 
Britain,  then  the  said  Lords  and  Commons  of  the  present 
Parliament  of  Great  Britain  shall  accordinijlv  be  the  mem- 
bers  of  the  respective  Houses  of  the  first  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain,  and  they,  to- 
gether with  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and  commons  so 
summoned  and  returned  as  above  on  the  part  of  Ireland,  shall 
be  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and  commons  of  the  first 
Parliament  of  thfe  United  Kingdom;  and  such  first  Parliament 
may  (in  lhat  case,)  if  not  sooner  dissolved,  continue  to  sit  so 
long  as  the  present  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  may  now  by 
law  continue  to  sit,  and  that  every  one  of  the  Lords  of  Par- 
liament of  the  United  Kinjidom,  and  every  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  of  the  United  Kinixdom  in  the  first  and 
nil  su<*('e<ling  Parliaments,  shall,  until  the  Parliament  of  the 
Ignited  Kingdom  shall  otherwise  provide,  take  the  oaths,  and 
make  and  subscribe  the  declaration,  which  are  at  present  by 
law  enjoined  to  be  taken,  made  and  subscribed  by  the  lords 
and  coTnTTions  of  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain. 

Jicsolced,  18.    That  for  the  same  i)urpose  it  would  be  fit  to 


ARTICLES  OF  UNIOX. 


351 


}  ropose  tliat  llie  Clinrclies  of  that  part  of  Great  Britain  called 
England,  and  of  Ireland,  should  be  united  into  one  Church, 
and  the  arclibisliops,  bishops,  deans  and  clergy  of  the  Churches 
of  England  and  Ir.eland  siiall,  from  lime  to  time,  be  summoned 
to  and  entitled  to  sit  in  convocation  of  the  United  Cliurch  in 
the  like  manner,  and  subject  to  the  same  regulations  as  are  at 
present  by  law  established,  with  respect  to  the  like  orders  of 
tlie  Church  of  England,  and  the  doctrine,  Avorship,  discipline, 
and  government  of  the  United  Church  j^hall  be  preserved  as 
now  by  law  established  for  the  Church  of  England;  and  the 
doctrine,  worship,  discipline,  and  governmeTit  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  shall  likewise  be  preserved  as  now  by  law  es- 
tablished for  the  Church  of  Scotland.  And  that  the  continu- 
ance and  preservation  forever  of  the  said  United  Church,  as 
the  Established  Church  of  that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom- 
called  England  and  Ireland,  shall  be  deemed  and  taken  to  be 
an  essential  and  fundamental  condition  of  the  treaty  of 
Union. 

Resolved,  19.  That  for  the  same  purpose,  all  laws  in  force 
at  the  time  of  the  Union,  and  all  courts  of  civil  and  ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction  within  the  respective  kingdoms,  shall  remain 
as  now  by  law  established,  subject  only  to  such  alteiations 
and  regulations,  from  time  to  time,  as  circumstances  may  ap- 
pear to  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  to  require, 
provided  that  all  writs  of  error  and  appeals  depending  at  the 
time  of  the  Union,  or  liei^after  to  be  brought,  and  which 
might  now  be  finally  decided  by  the  House  of  Lords  of  either 
kingdom,  shall  from  and  after  the  Union  be  finally  decided  by 
the  House  of  Lords  of  the  United  Kiiigdom;  and  provided, 
that  from  and  after  the  Union  there  shall  remain  in  Ireland 
an  instance  Court  of  Admiralvv,  for  the  determination  of 
causes  civil  and  maritime  oidy;  and  that  all  laws  at  present 
in  force  in  either  kingdom,  which  shall  be  contrary  to  any  of 
the  provisions  which  may  be  enacted  by  any  act  for  carrying 
this  article  into  efl^ect,  be  from  and  after  the  L^nion  repealed. 

Hesolvcd,  20.  That  for  the  same  purpose  it  would  be  fit  to 
propose  that  His  Majesty's  subjects  of  Great  Britain  and  Ire- 


352 


IKELAXD,  TAST  AXD  PRESENT, 


land  shall,  from  and  after  the  first  day  of  January,  one  lliou-. 
sand  eight  Imndred  and  one,  be  entitled  to  the  same  privileges, 
and  be  on  the  same  footing  as  to  encouragement  and  bounties 
on  the  like  articles,  being  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture 
of  either  kingdom  respectively  and  generally  in  respect  of  trade 
and  navigation  in  all  ports  and  places  in  the  United  Kingdom 
and  its  dependencies  ;  and  that  in  all  treaties  made  by  His 
Majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors,  with  any  foreign  power, 
His  Majesty's  subjects  of  Ireland  shall  have  the  same  privi- 
leges, and  be  on  the  same  footing  as  His  Majesty's  subjects 
of  Great  Britain. 

Itesolved^  21.  That  from  the  first  day  of  January,  one  tliou- 
sand  eight  hundred  and  one,  all  prohibitions  and  bounties  on 
the  export  of  articles,  the  growth  or  manufacture  of  either 
country,  to  the  othei",  shall  cease  and  determine;  and  that  the 
said  articles  shall  thenceforth  be  exported  from  one  country  to 
the  other  without  duty  or  bounty  on  such  export. 

Mesolved,  22.  That  all  articles,  the  growth,  produce  or  manu- 
facture of  either  kingdom,  not  hereinafter  enumerated  as 
subject  to  sjDecific  duties,  shall  from  henceforth  be  imported 
into  each  country  from  the  other  free  from  duty,  other  than 
such  countervailing  duty  as  shall  be  annexed  to  the  several 
articles  contained  in  the  Schedule  No.  I.  ;*  and  that  the  articles 
hereinafter  enumerated  shall  be  subject  for  the  period  of 
twenty  years  from  the  Union,  on  iraportaion  into  each  country 
from  the  other,  to  the  duties  specified  in  the  Schedule  No.  H., 
annexed  to  this  article,  viz  : 

Apparel,  Millinery, 

Brass,  wrought,  Paper,  stained. 

Cabinet  Ware,  Pottery, 

Coaches  and  carriages,  Saddlery, 

Copper,  wrought,  Silk,  manufactured, 

Cottons,  Stockings, 

Glass,  Thread,  bullion  for  lace,  pearl,  and 

Haberdashery,  spangles. 

Hats,  Tin  plates,  wrought  iron,  and  hard- 
Lace,  gold  and  silver;  ware, 
gold  and  silver  threads 

♦  This  refers  to  Schedules  annexed  to  the  resolaiioiis,  as  originally  introduced. 


ARTICLES  OF  UNION.  353 

And  that  the  woolen  manufacture  sHall  pay  on  importation 
into  each  country,  tlie  duties  noAV  payable  on  importation  into 
Ireland  ;  salt  and  hops  on  importation  into  Ireland,  duties  not 
exceeding  those  which  are  now  paid  in  Ireland  ;  and  coals  on 
importation  to  be  subject  to  burdens  not  exceeding  those  to 
wliich  they  are  now  subject. 
'  That  calicoes  and  muslins  be  subject  and  liable  to  the  duties 
now  payable  on  the  same,  until  the  fifth  day  of  January,  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight  ;  and  from  and  after  the 
said  day,  the  said  duties  shall  be  annually  reduced  in  such  pro- 
portion, and  at  such  periods  as  shall  hereafter  be  enacted,  so 
as  that  the  said  duties  shall  stand  at  ten  per  cent,  from  and 
after  the  fifth  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  sixteew,  until  the  fifth  day  of  January,  which  shall  be 
in  the  year  one  thousand  eight  liundred  and  twenty-one  ; 
and  that  cotton,  yarn,  and  cotton-twist  shall  also  be  subject 
and  liable  to  the  duties  now  paj^able  upon  the  same,  until  the 
fifth  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight, 
and  from  and  after  the  said  day,  the  said  duties  shall  be  an-' 
nually  reduced  at  such  times,  and  in  such  proportions,  as  shall 
be  hereafter  enacted,  so  as  that  all  duties  shall  cease  on  the 
said  articles  from  and  after  the  fifth  day  of  January,  ona 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  sixteen. 

Jicsolved,  23.  That  any  articles  of  the  growth,  produce,  or 
manufacture  of  either  country,  which  are  or  may"  be  subject 
to  internal  duty,  or  to  duty  on  the  materials  of  which  they  are 
composed,  may  be  made  subject  on  their  importation  into 
each  country  respectively  from  the  other,  to  such  countervail- 
ing duty  as  shall  appear  to  be  just  and  reasonable  in  respect 
to  such  internal  duty  or  duties  on  the  materials;,  and  that  for 
the  said  purposes  the  articles  specified  in  the  s^aid  Schedule 
No.  I.  should,  upon  importation  into  Ireland,  be  subject  to 
the  duty  which  shall  be  set  forth  therein,  liable  to  bp  taken 
off,  diminished,  or  increased  in  the  manner  herein  specified; 
and  that  upon  the  like  export  of  the  like  articles  from  each 
country  to  the  other  respectively,  a  drawback  shall  be  given, 
equal  in  amount  to  the  countervailing  duty,  payable  on  the 


354  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

ft 

articles  hereinbefore  specified,  on  the  import  into  the  same 
country  with  the  other;  and  that  in  like  manner,  in  future,  it 
shall  be  comj^etent  to  the  United  Pailiament  to  impose  any 
new  or  additional  countervailing  duties,  or  to  take  off  or 
diminish  such  existing  countervailing  duties  as  may  appear  on 
like  principles  to  be  just  and  reasonable,  in  res^^ect  of  any 
future  or  additional  internal  duty  on  any  article  of  the  growth 
or  manufactuie  of  either  country,  or  of  any  new  additional 
duty  on  any  materials  of  which  such  article  maybe  composed, 
or  any  abatement  of  the  same;  and  that  when  any  such  new 
or  additional  countervailing  duty  shall  be  so  imposed  on  the 
import  of  any  article  into  either  country  from  the  othei",  a 
drawback  equal  in  amount  to  such  countervailing  duty  shall 
be  given  in  like  manner  on  the  export  of  every  such  article 
respectively  from  the  same  country. 

Hesolvedy  24.  That  all  articles,  the  growth,  produce,  or 
manufacture  of  either  kingdom,  when  exported  through  the 
other,  shall  in  all  cases  be  exported  subject  to  the  same  charges 
as  if  they  had  been  exported  directly  from  the  country  of 
which  they  were  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture. 

JResolvedy  25.  That  all  duty  charged  on  the  import  of 
foreign  or  colonial  goods  into  either  country,  shall  on  their 
export  to  the  other,  be  either  drawn  back,  or  the  amount,  if 
any  be  retained,  shall  be  placed  to  the  credit  of  the  country 
to  which  they  shall  be  so  exported,  so  long  as  the  general 
expenses  of  the  empire  shall  be  defrayed  by  proportional  con- 
tributions. Provided,  Nothing  herein  shall  extend  to  take 
away  any  duty,  bounty,  or  prohibition  which  exists  with  re- 
spect to  corn,  meal,  malt,  flour,  and  biscuit,  but  that  the  same 
may  be  regulated,  varied  or  repeated,  from  time  to  time,  as 
the  United  Parliament  shall  deem  expedient. 

A^f  ACT   FOR  THE   UNION   OF   GREAT  BRITAIN   AND  IRELAND,  2d 

JULY,  1800. 

Whereas,  In  pursuance  of  His  Majesty's  most  gracious 
recommendation  to  the  two  Houses  of  Parliament  in  Great 


AETICLES  OF  UNIOIS". 


355 


Britain  and  Ireland  respectively,  to  consider  of  such  measures 
as  might  best  tend  to  strengthen  and  consolidate  the  connection 
between  the  two  kingdoms,  the  two  Houses  of  the  Parliament 
of  Great  Britain  and  the  two  Houses  of  the  Parliament  of  Ire- 
land have  severally  agreed  and  resolved  that,  in  order  to  pro- 
mote and  secure  the  essential  interests  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland,  and  to  consolidate  the  strength,  power,  and  resources 
of  the  British  empire,  it  will  be  advisable  to  concur  in  such 
measures  as  may  best  tend  to  unite  the  two  kingdoms  of 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland  into  one  kingdom,  in  such  manner, 
and  on  such  terms  and  conditions,  as  may  be  established  by 
the  acts  of  the  respective  Parliaments  of  Great  Britain  and 
Ireland. 

And  whereas,  in  furtherance  of  the  said  resolution,  both 
Houses  of  the  said  two  Parliaments  respectively  have  likewise 
agreed  upon  certain  articles,  for  effectuating  and  establishing 
the  said  purposes,  in  the  tenor  followi!ig: — 

Article  I.  That  it  be  the  first  ai  ticle  of  the  Union  of  th,e 
kingdoms  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  that  the  said  king- 
doms of  Great  Britain  aud  Ireland  shall,  u})on  the  first  day 
of  January  which  shall  be  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one  thou- 
sand eight  hundred  and  one,  and  forever  after,  be  united  into 
one  kingdom,  by  the  name  of  The  United  Kingdom  of  Great 
Britain  and  Ireland;  and  that  the  loyal  style  and  titles  ap- 
pertaining to  the  imperial  crown  of  the  said  United  Kingdom 
and  its  dependencies,  and  also  the  ensigns,  armorial  flags,  and 
banners  thereof,  shall  be  such  as  His  Majesty,  by  his  royal 
proclamation  under  the  Great  Seal  of  the  United  Kingdom, 
shall  be  pleased  to  appoint. 

Article  II.  That  it  be  the  second  article  of  Union,  that  the 
succession  to  the  imperial  crown  of  the  said  United  Kingdom, 
and  of  the  dominions  thereunto  belonging,  shall  continue  lim- 
ited and  settled  in  the  same  manner  as  the  succession  to  the  im- 
perial crown  of  the  said  kingdoms  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland 
is  now  limited  and  settled,  according  to  the  existing  laws,  and 
to  the  terms  of  Union  between  Enixland  and  Scotland. 

Article  IH.  That  it  be  the  third  article  of  Union,  that  the 


3jG  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

said  United  Kingdom  be  represented  in  one  and  the  same 
Parliament,  to  be  stvled  "  Tiie  Parliament  of  the  United  Kins:- 
dom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland." 

Article  IV  That  it  be  the  fourth  article  of  Union,  that 
four  lords  spiritual  of  Ireland  by  rotation  of  sessions,  and 
twenty-eight  lords  temporal  of  Ireland  elected  for  life  by  the 
peers  of  Ireland,  shall  be  the  number  to  sit  and  vote  on  the 
part  of  Ireland  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  Parliament  of 
the  United  Kingdom;  and  one  hundred  commoners  (two  for 
each  county  of  Ireland,  two  for  the  city  of  Dublin,  two  for 
the  city  of  Cork,  one  for  the  University  of  Trinity  College, 
and  one  for  each  of  the  thirty-one  most  considerable  cities, 
towns,  and  boroughs,)  be  the  number  to  sit  and  vote  on  the 
part  of  Ireland  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  Parliament 
of  the  United  Kinc^dom. 

That  such  act  as  shall  be  passed  in  the  Parliament  of  Ire- 
land previous  to  the  Union,  to  regulate  the  mode  by  which 
the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and  the  commons,  to  serve  in 
the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  on  the  part  of  Ireland, 
shall  be  summoned  and  returned  to  the  said  Parliament,  shall 
be  considered  as  forming  part  of  the  treaty  of  Union,  and 
shall  be  incorporated  in  the  acts  of  the  respective  Parlia- 
ments by  which  the  said  Union  shall  be  ratified  and  estab- 
lished. 

That  all  questions  touching  the  rotation  or  election  of  lords 
spiritual  or  temporal  of  Ireland  to  sit  in  the  Parliament  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  shall  be  decided  by  the  House  of  Lords 
thereof;  and  whenever,  by  reason  of  an  equality  of  votes  in 
the  election  of  any  such  lords  temporal,  a  complete  election  shall 
not  be  made  according  to  the  true  intent  of  this  article, 
the  names  of  those  peers  for  whom  such  equality  of  votes 
shall  be  so  given,  shall  be  written  on  pieces  of  paper  of  a 
similar  form,  and  shall  be  put  into  a  glass,  by  the  clerk  of 
the  Parliaments  at  the  table  of  the  House  of  Lords,  whilst  the 
liouse  is  sitting;  and  the  peer  or  peers  whose  name  or  names 
shall  be  first  drawn  out  bv  the  clerk  of  the  Parliaments,  shall 
be  deemed  the  peer  or  peers  elected  as  the  case  may  be. 


ARTICLES  OF  UNION. 


357 


That  any  person  liolding  any  peerage  of  Ireland  now  sub- 
sisting, or  hereafter  to  be  created,  shall  not  thereby  be  dis- 
qualified from  being  elected  to  service  if  he  shall  so  think  fit, 
or  from  serving  or  continuing  to  serve,  if  he  shall  so  think 
fit,  for  any  county,  city,  or  borough  of  Great  Bi'itain,  in  the 
House  of  Commons  of  the  United  Kingdom,  unless  he  shall 
have  been  previously  elected  as  above,  to  sit  in  the  House  of 
Lords  of  the  United  Kingdom;  but  that  so  long  as  such  peer 
of  Ireland  shall  so  continue  to  be  a  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons,  he  shall  not  be  entitled  to  the  privilege  of  peerage, 
nor  be  capable  of  being  elected  to  serve  as  a  peer  on  the  part 
of  Ireland,  or  of  voting  at  any  such  election;  and  that  he  shall 
be  liable  to  be  sued,  indicted,  proceeded  against,  and  tried 
asacommoner,  for  any  offense  with  which  he  maybe  charged. 

That  it  shall  be  lawful  for  His  Majesty,  his  heirs  and  suc- 
cessors, to  create  peers  of  that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom 
called  Ireland,  and  to  make  promotions  in  the  peerage  thereof, 
after  the  Union,  Provided,  That  no  new  creation  of  anv 
such  peers  shall  take  place  after  the  Union  until  three  of  the 
peerages  of  Ireland,  which  shall  have  been  existing  at  the 
time  of  the  Union,  shall  have  become  extinct;  and  upon  such 
extinction  of  three  peerages,  that  it  shall  be  lawful  for  His 
Majesty,  his  lieirs  and  successors,  to  create  one  peer  of  that 
part  of  the  United  Kingdom  called  Ireland;  ajid  in  like  man- 
ner so  often  as  three  peerages  of  that  part  of  the  United 
Kingdom  called  Ireland  shall  become  extinct,  it  shall  be  law- 
ful for  His  Majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors,  to  create  one 
other  peer  of  the  said  part  of  the  United  Kingdom;  and  if  it 
shall  happen  that  the  peers  of  that  part  of  the  United  King- 
dom called  Ireland  shall,  by  extinction  of  peerages  or  other- 
Avise,  be  reduced  to  the  number  of  one  hundred,  exclusive  of 
all  such  peers  of  that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  called 
Ireland,  as  shall  hold  any  peerage  of  Great  Britain  subsisting 
at  the  time  of  the  Union,  or  of  the  United  Kingdom  created 
since  tlie  Union,  by  which  such  peers  shall  be  entitled  to  an 
hereditary  '^eat  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  United  Kini2:dom, 
then  and  in  that  case  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful  for  His 


358  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PliESEXT. 

Majesly,  liis  heirs  and  successors^  to  create  one  peer  of  tliat 
part  of  the  United  Kingdom  called  Ireland  as  often  as  any- 
one of  such  one  hundred  peerages  shall  fail  by  extinction,  or 
as  often  as  any  one  peer  of  that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom 
called  Ireland  shall  become  entitled,  by  descent  or  creation,  to 
an  hereditary  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  United  King- 
dom; it  being  the  true  intent  and  meaning  of  this  article,  that 
at  all  times  after  the  Union  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful  for  His 
Majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors,  to  keep  up  the  peerage  of 
*  that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  called  Ireland  to  the  number 
of  one  hundred,  over  and  above  the  number  of  such  of  the 
said  peers  as  shall  be  entitled  by  descent  or  creation  to  an 
hereditary  seat  in  the  House  of  Lords  of  the  United  Kingdom. 

That  if  any  peerage  shall  at  any  time  be  in  abeyance,  such 
peerage  shall  be  deemed  and  taken  as  an  existing  peerage; 
and  no  peerage  shall  be  deemed  extinct,  unless  on  default  of 
claimants  to  the  inheritance  of  such  peerage  for  the  space  of 
one  year  from  the  death  of  the  person  who  sliall  have  been 
last  possessed  thereof;  and  if  no  claim  shall  be  made  to  the 
inheritance  of  such  peerage,  in  such  form  and  manner  as  may 
from  time  to  time  be  prescribed  by  the  House  of  Lords  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  before  the  expiration  of  the  said  period  of  a 
year,  then  and  in  that  case  such  peerage  shall  be  deemed  ex- 
tinct. Provided,  That  nothing  herein  shall  exclude  any  person 
from  afterwards  putting  in  a  claim  to  the  peerage  so  deemed 
extinct;  and  if  such  claim  shall  be  allowed  as  valid,  by  judg- 
ment of  the  House  of  Lords  of  tlie  L'nited  Kingdom,  reported 
to  Ills  Majesty,  such  peerage  shall  be  considered  as  revived; 
and  in  case  any  new  creation  of  a  peerage  of  that  part  of  the 
United  Kingdom  called  Ireland  shall  have  taken  place  in  the 
interval,  in  consequence  of  the  snpposed  extinction  of  such 
peerage,  then  no  new  right  of  creation  shall  accrue  to  His  ' 
Majesty,  hi>i  heirs  or  successors,  in  consequence  of  the  next 
extinction  which  shall  take  place  of  any  peerage  of  that  part 
of  the  United  Kingdom  called  Ireland. 

That  all  questions  touching  the  election  of  members  to  sit  on 
the  part  of  Ireland  in  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  United 


AKTICLES  OF  UNION. 


359 


Kincfdom  shall  be  heard  and  decided  in  the  same  manner  as 
questions  touching  such  elections  in  Great  Britain  now  are  or 
at  any  time  hereafter  shall  by  law  be  heard  and  decided;  subject 
nevertheless  to  such  particular  regulations  in  respect  to  Ire- 
land as,  from  local  circumstances,  the  Parliament  of  the  United 
Kingdom  may  from  time  to  time  deem  expedient. 

That  the  qualifications  in  respect  of  property  of  the  mem- 
bers elected  on  the  part  of  Ireland  to  sit  in  the  House  of 
Commons  of  the  United  Kingdom,  shall  be  respectively  the 
same  as  are  now  provided  by  law  in  the  cases  of  elections  for 
counties,  and  cities,  and  boroughs  respectively  in  that  part  of 
Great  Britain  called  England,  unless  any  other  provision  shall 
hereafter  be  made  in  that  respect  by  act  of  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom. 

That  when  His  Majesty,  his  heirs  or  successors,  shall  de- 
clare his,  her,  or  their  pleasure  for  holding  a  first  or  any  sub- 
sequent Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom,  a  proclamation 
shall  issue,  under  the  Great  Seal  of  the  United  Kingdom,  to 
cause  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons,  who  are  to 
serve  in  the.  Parliament  thereof  on  the  part  of  Ireland,  to  be 
returned  in  sucii  manner  as  by  any  act  of  this  present  ses- 
sion of  the  Parliament  of  Ireland  shall  be  provided;  and  that 
the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and  commons  of  Great  Bri- 
tain shall,  together  with  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and 
commons  so  returned  as  aforesaid  on  the  part  of  Ireland,  con- 
stitute the  two  Houses  of  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kinp:- 
dom. 

That  if  His  Majesty,  on  or  before  the  first  day  of  January, 
one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  one,  on  which  day  the  Union 
is  to  take  place,  shall  declare,  under  the  Great  Seal  of  Gr^at 
Britain,  that  it  is  expedient  that  the  lords  and  commons  of 
the  present  Parliament  of  Great  Britain  should  be  the  mem- 
bers of  the  respective  Houses  of  the  first  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain;  then  the  said 
lords  and  commons  of  the  present  Parliament  of  Great  Britain 
shall  accordingly  be  the  members  of  the  respective  Houses  of 
the  first  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  on  the  part  of 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PrtESEXT. 


Great  Britain,  and  they,  together  with  the  lords  spiritual  and 
temporal  and  commons,  so  summoned  and  returned  as  above 
on  tlie  part  of  Ireland,  shall  be  the  lords  spiritual  and  tem- 
])oral  and  commons  of  the  first  Parliament  of  the  United  King- 
dom; and  such  first  Parliament  may  (in  that  case),  if  not 
sooner  dissolved,  continue  to  sit  so  long  as  tlie  present  Pai  lia- 
ment  of  Great  Britain  may  by  law  now  continue  to  sit,  if  not 
sooner  dissolved:  Provided  ahcays^  That  until  an  act  shall 
liave  passed  in  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom,  pro- 
viding in  what  ca«;es  persons  holding  oflfices  or  places  of  profit 
under  the  crown  of  Ireland,  shall  be  incapable  of  being  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Commons  of  the  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  no  greater  number  of  members  than  twenty, 
holding  such  offices  or  places  as  aforosaid,  shall  be  capable  of 
sitting  in  tiie  said  House  of  Commons  of  the  Parliament  of 
the  United  Kingdom;  and  if  such  a  number  of  members  shall 
be  returned  to  serve  in  the  said  house  as  to  make  the  whole 
number  of  members  of  the  said  house  holding  such  ofiices  or 
places  as  aforesaid  more  than  twentj',  then  and  in  such  case 
the  seat  s  or  pi  aces  of  such  members  as  shall  have  last  accepted 
such  ofiices  or  places  shall  be  vacated,  at  the  option  of  such 
members,  so  as  to  reduce  the  number  of  members  holding  such 
offices  or  places  to  the  number  of  twenty;  and  no  person  hold- 
ing any  such  office  or  place  shall  be  capable  of  being  elected 
or  of  sitting  in  the  said  house,  while  there  are  twenty  persons 
kolding  such  offices  or  places  sitting  in  the  said  house;  and 
that  every  one  of  the  lords  of  parliament  of  the  United  King- 
dom, and  every  member  of  the  House  of  Commons  in  the 
United  Kingdom,  in  the  first  and  all  succeeding  Parlinmonts, 
shall,  until  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  other- 
wise provide,  take  the  oaths,  and  make  and  subscribe  the  de- 
claration, and  take  and  subscribe  the  oath  now  by  law  enjoined 
•  to  be  taken,  made,  and  subscribed  by  tlie  lords  and  commons 
of  the  Parliament  of  Great  Britain. 

That  the  lords  of  Parliament  on  the  part  of  Ireland,  in  the 
House  of  Lords  of  the  Unite«l  Kingdom,  shall  at  all  times  have 
the  same  privileges  of  Parliament  which  shall  belong  to  the 


ARTICLES  OF  UNION. 


361 


lords  of  Parliament  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain;  and  the 
lord  sj^iritual  and  temporal  respectively  on  the  part  of  Ireland 
shall  at  all  times  have  the  same  rights  in  respect  of  their  sit- 
ting and  voting  upon  the  trial  of  peers,  as  the  lords  spiritual 
and  temporal  respectively  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain;  and 
that  all  lords  spiritual  of  Ireland  shall  have  rank  and  precedency 
next  and  immediately  after  the  lords  spiritual  of  the  same 
rank  and  degree  of  Great  Britain,  and  shall  enjoy  all  piivi- 
leges  as  fully  as  the  lords  spiritual  of  Great  Britain  do  now 
or  may  hereafter  -enjoy  the  same  (the  right  and  privilege  of 
sitting  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the  privileges  depending 
thereon,  and  particularly  the  right  of  sitting  on  the  trial  of 
peers,  excepted);  and  that  the  persons  holding  any  temporal 
peerages  of  Ireland,  existing  at  the  time  of  the  Union,  shall, 
from  and  after  the  Union,  have  rank  and  precedency  next  and 
immediately  after  all  the  persons  holding  peerages  of  the  like 
orders  and  degrees  in  Great  Britain,  subsisting  at  the  time  of 
the  Union;  and  that  all  peerages  of  Ireland  created  after  the 
Union  shall  have  rank  and  precedency  with  the  peerages  of 
the  United  Kingdom  so  created,  according  to  the  dates  of 
their  creations;  and  that  all  peerages  both  of  Great  Britain 
and  Ireland,  now  subsisting  or  hereafter  to  be  created,  shall  in 
all  other  respects,  from  the  date  of  the  Union,  be  considered 
as  peerages  of  the  United  Kingdom;  and  that  the  peers  of 
Ireland  shall,  as  peers  of  the  United  Kingdom,  be  sued  and 
tried  as  peers,  except  as  aforesaid,  and  shall  enjoy  all  privi- 
leges of  peers  as  fully  as  the  peers  of  Great  Britain;  the  right 
and  privilege  of  sitting  in  the  House  of  Lords,  and  the  privi- 
leges depending  thereon,. and  the  right  of  sitting  on  the  trial 
of  peers,  only  excepted. 

Article  V.  That  it  be  the  fifth  article  of  Union,  that  the 
Churches  of  England  and  Ireland,  as  now  by  law  established, 
be  united  into  one  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  to  be  called 
T/ie  Uiiited  Church  of  England  and  IreUmd ■s^wdi  X\\^\j  the 
doctrine,  worship,  discipline,  and  government  of  the  said 
United  Church  shall  be  and  shall  remain  in  full  force  forever, 
as  the  same  are  now  by  law  established  for  the  Church  of 


362 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


England;  and  that  the  continuance  and  preservation  of  tlie 
said  United  Church  as  the  Established  Church  of  England 
and  Ireland,  shall  be  deemed  and  taken  to  be  an  essential  and 
fundamental  part  of  the  Union;  and  that  in  like  manner  the 
doctrine,  worship,  discipline,  and  government  of  the  Church 
of  Scotland  shall  remain  and  be  preserved  as  the  same  are 
now  established  by  law,  and  by  the  acts  for  the  Union  of  the 
two  kingdoms  of  England  and  Scotland. 

Article  VI.  That  it  be  the  sixth  article  of  Union,  that  His 
Majesty's  subjects  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  shall,  from 
and  after  the  first  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eiglit  hundred 
and  one,  be  entitled  to  the  same  privileges,  and  be  on  the  same 
footing,  as  to  encouragements  and  bounties  on  the  like  articles 
being  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture  of  either  country, 
respectively,  and  generally  in  respect  of  trade  and  navigation 
in  all  ports  ajid  places  in  the  United  Kingdom  and  its  depend- 
encies; and  that  in  all  treaties  made  by  His  Majesty,  his  heirs 
and  successors,  with  any  foreign  power,  His  Majesty's  subjects 
of  Ireland  shall  have  the  same  privileges,  and  be  on  the  same 
footing  as  His  Majesty's  subjects  of  Great  Britain. 

That,  from  the  first  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  one,  all  prohibitions  and  bounties  on  the  export  of 
articles,  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture  of  either  coun- 
try, to  the  other,  shall  cease  and  determine  ;  and  that  the 
said  articles  shall  thenceforth  be  exported  from  one  country  to 
the  other,  without  duty  or  bounty  on  such  export. 

That  all  articles,  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture  of 
either  country,  (not  hereinafter  enumerated  as  subject  to 
specific  duties,)  shall  from  thenceforth  be  imported  into  each 
country  from  the  other,  free  from  duty,  other  than  such  coun- 
tervailing duties  on  the  several  articles  enumerated  in  the 
Schedule  Xumber  One,  A.  and  B.,  hereunto  annexed,  as  are 
therein  specified,  or  to  such  other  countervailing  duties  as 
shall  hereafter  be  imposed  by  the  Parliament  of  the  United 
Kingdom,  in  the  manner  hereinafter  provided ;  and  that,  for 
the  period  of  twenty  years  from  the  Union,  the  articles  enu- 
merated in  the  Schedule  Xumber  Two,  hereunto  annexed,  shall 


ARTICLES  OF  UNION. 


303 


be  subject  on  importation  into  each  country  from  the  otlicr,  to 
the  duties  specified  in  the  said  Schedule  Number  Two,  and 
the  woolen  manufactures,  known  by  the  names  of  Old  and 
New  Drapery^  shall  pay,  on  importation  into  each  country 
from  tlie  other,  the  duties  now  payable  on  importation  into 
Ireland:  Salt  and  hops,  on  imporation  into  Ireland  from  Great 
Britain,  duties  not  exceeding  those  which  are  now  paid  on 
importation  into  Ireland;  and  coals  on  importation  into  Ireland 
from  Great  Britain  shall  be  subject  to  burdens  not  exceeding 
those  to  which  they  are  4iow  subject. 

That  calicoes  and.  muslins  shall,  on  their  importation  into 
either  country  from  the  other,  be  subject  and  liable  to  the 
duties  now  payable  on  the  same,  on  the  importation  thereof 
from  Great  Britain  into  Ireland,  until  the  fifth  day  of  Jan- 
uary, one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  eight;  and  from  and 
after  the  said  day,  the  said  duties  shall  be  annually  reduced, 
by  equal  proportions,  as  near  as  may  be  in  each  year,  so  as 
that  the  said  duties  shall  stand  at  ten  per  centuni  from  and 
after  the  fifth  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight  hundred 
and  sixteen,  until  the  fifth  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  twenty-one  ;  and  that  cotton  yarn  and  cotton 
twist  shall,  on  their  importation  into  either  country  from  the 
other,  be  subject  and  liable  to  the  duties  now  payable  upon 
the  same  on  the  importation  thereof  from  Great  Britain  into 
Ireland,  until  the  fifth  day  of  January,  one  thousand  eight 
liundred  and  eight,  and  from  and  after  the  said  day  the  said 
duties  shall  be  annually  reduced  by  equal  proportions  as  near  as 
maybe  in  each  year,  so  that  as  that  all  duties  shall  cease  on  tlie 
said  articles  from  and  aftei'the  fifth  day  of  January,  one  thou- 
sand eight  hundred  and  sixteen. 

That  any  articles  of  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture  of 
either  country,  which  are  or  maybe  subject  to  internal  duty, 
or  to  duty  on  the  materials  of  which  they  are  composed,  may 
be  made  subject,  on  their  importation  into  each  country  re- 
spectively from  the  other,  to  such  countervailing  duty  as  shall 
appear  to  be  just  and  reasonable  in  respect  of  such  internal 
duty  or  duties  on  the  materials;  and  that  for  the  said  pur- 


364 


iu:::.AXD,  past  and  pi:i:s::xt. 


poses  the  articles  specified  in  the  said  Schedule  Number  One, 
A.  and  B.,  shall  be  subject  to  the  duties  set  forth  therein,  liable 
to  be  taken  off,  diminished,  or  increased,  in  the  manner  herein 
specified  ;  and  that  upon  the  export  of  the  said  articles  from 
eacli  country  to  the  other  respectively,  a  drawback  shall  be 
given  equal  in  amount  to  the  countervailing  duty  payable  on 
sucli  articles  on  the  import  thereof  into  the  same  country  from 
the  other;  and  that  in  like  manner  in  future  it  shall  be  com- 
petent to  the  United  Parliament  to  impose  any  new  or  ad- 
ditional countervailing  duties,  or  to  take  off,  or  diminish  such 
existing  countervailing  duties  as  may  appear,  on  like  princi- 
ples, to  be  just  and  reasonable  in  respect  of  any  future  or  ad- 
ditional internal  duty  on  any  article  of  the  growth,  produce, 
or  manufacture  of  either  country,  or  of  any  new  or  additional 
duty  of  any  materials  of  which  such  article  maybe  composed, 
or  on  any  abatement  of  duty  on  the  same;  and  that  when  any 
such  new  or  additional  countervailing  duty  shall  be  so  imposed 
on  the  import  of  any  article  into  either  country  from  the  other, 
a  drawback,  equal  in  amount  to  such  countervailing  duty  shall 
be  given  in  like  manner  on  the  export  of  every  such  article 
respectively  from  the  same  country  to  the  other. 

That  all  articles,  the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture  of 
either  country,  when  exported  through  the  other,  shall  in  all 
cases  be  exported  subject  to  the  same  charges  as  if  tliey  had 
been  exported  directly  from  the  country  of  which  they  were 
the  growth,  produce,  or  manufacture. 

That  all  duty  charged  on  the  import  of  foreign  or  colonial 
goods  into  either  country,  shall,  onjtheir  export  to  the  other, 
be  either  drawn  back,  or  the  amount,  if  any  be  retained,  shall 
be  placed  to  the  credit  of  the  country  to  which  they  shall  be 
so  exported,  so  long  as  the  expenditure  of  the  United  King- 
dom shall  be  defrayed  'by  proportional  contributions  :  Pro- 
vided alioajjs,  That  nothing  herein  shall  extend  to  take  away 
any  duty,  bounty,  or  prohibition,  which  exists  with  resjiect  to 
corn,  meal,  malt,  flour.,  or  biscuit  ;  but  that  all  duties,  boun- 
ties, or  prohibitions,  on  the  said  articles,  may  be  regulated, 


ARTICLES  OF  UNION. 


3G5 


varied,  or  repeal cd,  from  time  to  time,  as  the  UriiLed  Parlia- 
ment shall  deem  expedient. 

Article  VII.  That  it  be  the  seventh  article  of  Union,  tliat 
the  charge  arising  from  the  payment  of  the  interest,  and  tlie 
sinking  fund  for  the  reduction  of  the  princi^^al,  of  the  debt  in- 
curred in  either  kingdom  before  the  Union,  shall  continue  to 
be  separately  defrayed  by  Great  Britian  and  Ireland  respect- 
ively^ except  as  hereinafter  provided. 

That  for  the  space  of  twenty  years  after  the  Union  shall 
take  place,  the  contribution  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  re- 
spectively, towards  the  expenditure  ot"  the  United  Kingdom 
in  each  year,  shall  be  defrayed  irulhe  proportion  of  fifteen 
parts  for  Great  Britain  and  two  parts  for  Ireland;  and  tliat  at 
the  expiration  of  the  said  twenty  years,  the  futni-e  expendi- 
ture of  the  United  Kingdom  (other  tlian  the  interest  and 
charges  of  the  debt  to  which  either  country  shall  be  separately 
liable,)  shall  be  defrayed  in  such  proportion  as  the  Parliament 
of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  deem  just  and  reasonable  upon 
a  comparison  of  the  real  value  of  the  exports  and  imports  of 
the  respective  countries,  upon  an  average  of  the  three  years 
next  preceding  the  period  of  revision;  or  on  a  comparison  of 
the  value  of  the  quantities  of  the  following  articles  consumed 
within  the  respective  countries,  on  a  similar  average,  viz., 
beer,  spirits,  sugar,  wine,  tea,  tobacco,  and  malt;  or  according 
to  the  aggregate  proportion  resulting  from  both  these  con- 
siderations combined;  or  on  a  comparison  of  the  amount  of 
income  in  each  country,  estimated  from  the  produce  for  the 
same  period  of  a  general  tax,  if  such  shall  have  been  imposed 
on  the  same  descriptions  of  income  in  both  countries;  and  that 
the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  afterwards  ])ro- 
ceed  in  like  manner  to  revise  and  fi,x  the  said  proportions  ac- 
cording to  the  same  rules,  or  any  of  them,  at  periods  not  more 
distant  than  twenty  years,  nor  less  than  seven  years  from  each 
other;  nnles<!,  previous  to  any  such  ]>eriod,  the  Parliament  cf 
the  United  Kingdom  shall  have  declared^  as  hereinafter  ]>io- 
vided,  that  the  expenditure  of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  bo 
defrayed  indiscriminately,  by  equal  taxes  imposed  on  the  like 


303  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PllESENT.  . 

articles  in  both  countries:  that,  for  the  defravinor  the  said 
expenditure  according  to  the  rules  above  laid  down,  the 
revenues  of  Ireland  shall  hereafter  constitute  a  consolidated 
fund,  which  shall  be  charged,  in  the  first  instance,  with  the 
interest  of  the  debrf;  of  Ireland,  and  with  the  sinking  fund  ap- 
plicable to  the  reduction  of  the  said  debt,  and  the  remainder 
shall  be  applied  towards  defraying  the  proportion  of  the  ex- 
penditure of  the  United  Kingdom,  to  whicli  Ireland  may  be 
liable  in  each  year:  that  the  proportion  of  contribution  to 
which  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  will  be  liable,  shall  be  raised 
by  such  taxes  in  each  country  respectively,  as  the  Parliament 
of  the  United  Kingdom  sliall  from  time  to  time  deem  fit: 
J^rovided  ahcays^  That  in  regulating  the  taxes  in  each  coun- 
try, by  which  their  respective  proportions  shall  be  levied,  no 
article  in  Ireland  shall  be  made  liable  to  any  new  or  additional 
duty,  by  which  the  whole  amount  of  duty  payable  thereon 
would  exceed  the  amount  which  will  be  thereafter  payable  in 
England  on  the  like  article:  that,  if  at  the  end  of  any  year 
any  surplus  shall  accrue  from  the  revenues  of  Irelanrl,  after 
defraying  the  interest,  sinking  fund,  and  proportional  contribu- 
tion and  separate  charges  to  which  the  said  country  shall  then 
be  liable,  taxes  shall  be  taken  off  to  the  amount  of  such  sur- 
plus, or  the  surplus  shall  be  applied  by  the  Parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom  to  local  purposes  in  Ireland,  or  to  make  good 
any  deficiency  which  may  anse  in  the  revenues  of  Ireland  in 
time  of  peace,  or  be  invested  by  the  commissioners  of  the 
national  debt  of  Ireland,  in  the  funds,  to  accumulate  for  the 
benefit  of  Ireland  at  compound  interest,  in  case  of  the  con- 
tribution of  Ireland  in  time  of  war;  Provided,  That  the  sur- 
plus so  to  accumulate  shall  at  no  future  period  be  suffered  to 
exceed  the  sum  of  five  millions:  that  all  moneys  to  be  raised 
after  the  Union,  by  loan  in  peace  or  war,  for  the  service  of 
the  United  Kingdom  by  the  Parliament  thereof,  shall  be  con^ 
sidered  to  be  a  joint  debt,  and  the  charges  thereof  shall  bo 
borne  by  the  respective  countries  in  the  proportion  of  their 
respective  contributions;  Provided,  That,  if  at  any  time,  in 
raising  their  respective  contributions  hereby  fixed  for  each 


AKTICLES  OF  UNION. 


367 


country,  the  Pailiament  of  the  United  Kingdom  shall  judge 
it  fit  to  raise  a  greater  proportion  of  such  respective  contribu- 
tions in  one  country  witliin  the  year  than  in  the  otiier,  or  to 
set  apart  a  greater  proportion  of  sinking  fund  for  the  liquida- 
tion of  the  whole  or  any  part  of  the  loan  raised  on  account 
of  the  one  country  than  that  raised  on  account  of  the  other 
country,  then  such  part  of  the  said  loan,  for  the  liquidation  of 
Avhich  different  provisions  shall  have  been  made  for  the  respec- 
tive countries,  shall  be  kept  distinct,  and  shall  be  borne  by  each 
separately,  and  only  that  part  of  the  said  loan  be  deemed 
joint  and  common,  for  the  reduction  of  which  the  respective 
countries  shall  have  made  provision  in  the  proportion  of  their 
respective  contributions:  that,  if  at  any  future  day  the  sepa- 
rate debt  of  each  country  respectively  shall  have  been  liqui- 
dated, or  if  the  values  of  their  respective  debts  (estimated 
accordinsrto  the  amount  of  the  interest  and  annuities  attendinir 
the  same,  and  of  the  sinking  fund  applicable  to  the  reduction 
thereof,  and  to  the  period  within  which  the  whole  capital  of 
such  debt  shall  appear  to  be  redeemable  by  such  sinking  fund) 
shall  be  to  each  other  in  the  same  proportion  with  the  respec- 
tive contributions  of  each  country  respectively;  or  if  the 
amount  by  tvhich  the  value  of  the  larger  of  such  debts  shall 
vary  from  such  proportion,  shall  not  exceed  one-hundredth  part 
of  the  said  value;  and  if  it  shall  appear  to  the  Parliament  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  that  the  respective  circumstances  of 
the  two  countries  will  thenceforth  admit  of  their  contributing 
indiscriminately,  by  equal  taxes  imposed  on  the  same  articles 
in  each,  to  the  future  expenditure  of  the  United  Kingdom,  it 
shall  be  competent  to  the  Parliament  of  the  United  Kingdom 
to  declare  that  all  future  expense  thenceforth  to  be  incurred, 
together  with  the  interest  and  charges  of  all  joint  debts  con- 
tracted previous  to  such  declaration,  shall  be  so  defrayed  in- 
discriminately by  equal  taxes  imposed  on  the  same  articles 
in  each  country,  and  thenceforth  from  time  to  time,  as 
circumstances  may  require,  to  impose  and  apply  such  taxes 
accordingly,  subject  otily  to  sucli  particular  exemptions  or 
abatements  in  Ireland,  and  in  that  part  of  Great  Britain  called 


368 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND 


Scotland,  as  circumstances  may  appear  from  time  to  time  to 
demand;  that,  from  the  period  of  such  declaration,  it  shall  no 
longer  be  necessary  to  regulate  the  contribution  of  the  two 
countries  towards  the  future  expenditure  of  the  United  King- 
dom, according  to  any  specific  proportion,  or  according  to  any 
of  tlie  rules  hereinbefore  described;  Provided  nevertheless ^ 
That  the  interest  or  charges  which  may  remain  on  account  of 
any  part  of  the  separate  debt  "with  which  either  country  shall 
be  chargeable,  and  which  shall  not  bo  liquidated  or  consoli- 
dated proportionably  as  above,  shall,  until  extinguished,  con- 
tmue  to  be  defrayed  by  separate  taxes  in  each  country;  that 
a  sum,  not  less  than  the  sum  which  has  been  granted  by  the 
Parliament  of  Ireland  on  the  average  of  six  years  immediately 
preceding  the  first  day  of  January,  in  the  year  one  thousand 
eight  hundred,  in  premiums  for  the  internal  encouragement  of 
agriculture  or  manufactures,  or  for  the  maintaining  institutions 
for  pious  and  charitable  purposes,  shall  be  applied,  for  the 
period  of  twenty  years  after- the  Union,  to  such  local  purposes 
in  Ireland,  in  such  m:innet  as  the  Parliament  of  the  United 
Kingdom  shall  direct;  that,  fi'om  and  after  the  first  day  of 
January,  one  thousand  eight  hundred  and  one,  all  public 
revenue  arisinsf  to  the  United  Kinijdom  from  the  teriitorial 
dependencies  thereof,  and  applied  to  the  general  expenditure  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  shall  be  so  applied  in  the  proportions  of 
the  respective  contributions  of  the  two  countries. 

Article  YIII  That  it  be  the  eighth  article  of  the  Union,  that 
all  laws  in  force  at  the  time  of  the  Union,  and  all  the  courts 
of  civil  and  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  within  the  respective 
kingdoms,  shall  remain  as  now  by  law  established  within  the 
same,  subject  only  to  such  alterations  and  regulations  from 
time  to  time  as  circumstances  may  appear  to  the  Parliament 
of  the  United  Kingdom  to  require.  Provided^  That  all  writs 
of  error  and  appeals  depending  at  the  time  of  the  Union  or 
hereafter  to  be  brought,  and  which  might  now  be  finally  de- 
cided by  the  House  of  Lords  of  either  kingdom,  shall,  from 
and  after  the  Union,  be  finally  decided  by  the  House  of  Lords 
of  the  United  Kingdom;  And  provided,  That  from  and  after 


ARTICLES  OF  UNION 


369 


the  Union,  there  shall  remain  in  Ireland  an  instance  Court 
of  Admiralty,  for  the  determination  of  causes  civil  and  mari- 
time only,  and  that  the  appeal  from  sentences  of  the  said  court 
shall  be  to  His  Majesty's  delegates  in  his  Court  of  Chancery  in 
that  part  of  the  United  Kingdom  called  Ireland;  and  that  nil 
laws  at  present  in  force  in  either  kingdom,  -which  shall  be 
contrary  to  any  of  the  provisions  which  may  be  enacted  by 
any  act  for  carrying  thesfe  articles  into  effect,  be  from  and  after 
the  Union  repealed. 

And  w/iereas,  The  said  articles  having,  by  address  of  the 
respective  Houses  of  Parliament  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
been  humbly  laid  before  His  Majesty,  His  Majesty  has  been 
graciously  pleased  to  approve  the  same;  and  to  recommend  it 
to  his  two  Houses  of  Parliament  in  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
to  consider  of  such  measures  as  may  be  necessary  for  giving 
effect  to  the  said  articles;  in  order,  therefore,  to  give  full  effect 
and  validity  to  the  same,  be  it  enacted  by  the  King's  Most 
Excellent  Majest)^  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the. 
lords  spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons,  in  this  present 
Parliament  assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same,  that 
the  said  foregoing  recited  articles,  each  and  every  one  of  them, 
according  to  the  true  import  and  tenor  thereof,  be  ratified, 
confirmed,  and  approved,  and  be  and  they  are  hereby  declared 
to  be  the  articles  of  the  Union  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, 
and  the  same  shall  be  in  force  and  have  effect  forever,  from  the 
first  day  of  January,  which  shall  be  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  one.  Provided,  That  before  that 
period  an  act  shall  have  been  passed  by  the  Parliament  of  Ii'c- 
land,  for  carrving  into  effect,  in  the  like  manner,  the  said 
foregoing  recited  articles. 


370 


lUELA^'D,  TAST  AXD  PKESENT. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


ORIGINAL  LISTS. 


Original  Red  List — Original  Black  List 

ORIGINAL  RED  LIST, 

OR  THE  MEMBERS  WHO  VOTED  AGAINST  THE  UNION  IN  1799  AND  1800, 

WITH  OBSERVATIONS. 

Those  names  with  a  (*)  affixed  to  them,  are  County  Members;  those 
■w  ith  a  (f)  City  Members;  and  those  with  a(^).  Borough  Members.  Those 
ill  Italics  CHANGED  SIDES,  and  got  either  money  or  offices. 


NAMES. 

1  *  Honorable  A.  Acheson 

2  *  William  C.  Alcock  .  . 

3  *  Mervyn  Arclulall    .  . 

4  §  W.  II.  Armstrong  .  . 

5  *  Sir  Richard  Butler  .  . 
G  *  John  Bagwell  .    .    .  . 

7  §  Peter  Burrowes  .    .  . 

8  *  John  Bagicell,  Jun. 

9  \  John  Ball  

10  t  Charles  Ball  .... 

11  f  Sir  Jonah  Barrington  . 

12  §  Charles  Busbe  .    .  . 

13  f  John  C.  Beresford  .  . 

14.    Arthur  Brown  .    .  . 


OBSERVATION. 

Son  to  Lord  Gosford. 
Couuty  Wexford, 
County  Fermanagh. 
Refused  all  terms  from  Government. 
Changed  Sides.    See  Black  List. 
Changed  aides  twice.    See  Black  List. 
Now  Judge  of  the  Insolvent  Court;  a 
steady  Auti  Unionist. 
Changed  sides.    Sen  Black  List. 
Member  for  Drogheda — incorruptible. 
Brother  to" the  preceding. 
King's  Counsel — Judge  of  the  Admiralty — 

refused  all  terms. 
Afterwards  Solicitor  General   and  Chief 

Justice  of  Ireland — incorruptible. 
Seceded  from  Mr.  Ponsonby  in  1799,  on  his 
declaration  of  independence.  That  se- 
cession was  fatal  to  Ireland. 
Member  for  the  University,  changed  sides 
in  1800;  was  appointed  Prime  Sergeant 
by  Lord  Castlereagh,  through  Mr.  Un- 
der Secretary  Cooke — of  all  others  the 
most  open  and  palpable  case.  See  Black 
List. 


ORIGINAL  RED  LIST. 


371 


XAMES. 

15  §  Williiitn  Blakeney  . 

16  *  William  Burton  . 


17  *  H.  V.  Brooke. 

18  §  Blayney  Balfour. 

19  ^  David  Babinglon  . 

20  f  Hon.  James  Butler 


21  *  Col.  J.  Maxwell  Barry 

22  §  William  Bagwell    .  . 

23  *  Viscount  Corry .    .  . 


24  f  Robert  Croice 

25  *  Lord  Clements  . 

26  *  Lord  Cole    .  . 


27  §  Hon.  Lowry  Cole  .  . 

28  *  R.  Shapland  Carew  . 

29  f  Hon.  A.  Creighton 

30  f  Hon.  J.  Creighton  .  . 

31  *  Joseph  Edward  Cooper 

32  f  James  Cane  .    .    .  . 

33  *  Lord  Caulfield  .    .  . 


34  \  Henry  Coddington 

35  j5  George  Crookshank 

36  *  Denis  B.  Daly   .  . 

37  t  Nouh  Dill  way. 

38  *  Ricliard  Dawson. 

39  ^  Arthur  Dawson 

40  *  Francis  Dobbs  . 


OBSETfVATION. 

A  Pensioner,  but  opposed  Government. 
Sold  his  BorougJi,  Carlow,  to  a  Unionist 

(Lord  Tullamore),  but  remained  stauiu  h 

himself. 


Connected  vritli  Lord  Belmore. 

(Now  Marquis  of  Ormonde),  noted  in  1800 

against  a  Union,  but  with  Government 

on  Lord  Corry's  motion 
(Now   Lord  Farnham).  nephew  to  the 

speaker. 

Changed  sides  twice,  concluded  as  a  Union- 
ist. 

(Now  Lord  Belmore),  dismissed  from  his 
regiment  by  Lord  Cornwallis — a  zealous 
leader  of  the  Opposition. 

A  Barrister,  bribed  by  Lord  Castlereagh. 

(Now  Lord  Leitrim.)  * 

(Now  Lord  Enuiskillen),  unfortunately  dis- 
sented from  Mr.  Ponsonby's  motion  for  a 
declaration  of  independence  in  1799, 
XDliereby  the  Union  was  revived  and 
carried. 

A  General;  brother  to  Lord  Cole. 

Changed  sides,  and'  became  a  Unionist. 

See  Black  List. 
Changed  sides.    See  Black  List. 

Changed  sides.    See  Black  List. 

(Now   Earl    Charlcmont),    son   to  Earl 

Charlemont,  a  principal  leader  of  the 

Opposition. 

A  son  of  the  Judge  of  the  Common  Pleas. 
Brother-in-law  to  Mr.  Ponsonby;  a  most 
active  Anti-Unionist. 


Formerly  a  Banker,  father  to  the  late  Un- 
der-Secretary. 

Famous  for  his  Doctrine  on  the  Millen- 
nmm;  an  enthusiastic  Anti-Unionist. 


372 


IKELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


NAMES.  OBSERVATION. 

41  f  John  Egan    ....    King's  Counsel,  Chairman  of  Kilmainbam; 

offered  a  Judge's  seat,  but  could  not  be 
purchased,  though  far  from  rich. 

42  R  L  Edgeworth. 

43  t  George  Evans. 

44  *  Sir  John  Freke,  Bart.    (Now  Lord  Carberry.) 

45  *  Frederick  Falkiner    .    Though  a  distressed  person,  could  not  be 

purchased. 

46  §  Rt.  Hon.  J.  Fitzgerald   Prime  Sergeant  of  Ireland ;  could  not  be 

bought,  and  vras  dismissed  from  his  high 
office  by  Lord  Cornwallis;  father  to  Mr. 
Vesey  Fitzgerald. 

47  *  William  C.  Fortescue,    One  of  the  three  who  inconsiderately  op- 
(Poisonedby  accident.)        posed  Mr.  Ponsonby,  and  Oiereby  carried 

the  Union, 

48  *  Rt  Hon.  John  Foster.    Speaker;  the    chief    of  the  Opposition 

throughout  the  whole  contest. 

49  Hon  Thomas  Foster. 

50  *  Sir  T  Fetherstori,  Bart.    Changed  sides.    Sec  Black  List. 

51  *  Arthur  French  .    .    .    Unfortunately  coincided  with  Mr.  Fortescue 

in  1799,  against  Mr.  Ponsonby. 

52  §  Chichester  Fortescue    .    King-at-Arms;  brought  over  in  ISOO,  by  Lord 

Castlereagh;  voted  both  sides;  ended  a 
L'nionist. 

53  §  WiUiam  Gore    .    .    .    Bought  by  Lord  Castlereagh  in  1800. 

54  §  Hamilton  Georges  .    .    A  distressed  man,  but  could  not  be  pur- 

chased; father-in-law  to  Under-Secretary 
Cooke. 

55  P  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  Gratlan 

56  §  Thomas  Goold         .    Now  Sergeant,  brought  into  Parliament  by 

the  Anti-Unionists. 

57  f  Hans  Hamilton     .    .    Member  for  Dublin  County. 

58  t  Edward  Hardman  .    .    City  of  Drogheda;  the  Speaker's  friend. 

59  §  Francis  Hardy  .    .    .    Author  of  the  Life  of  Charlemont;  brother- 

in-law  to  the  Bishop  of  Down. 

60  §  Sir  Joseph  Hoare. 

61  *  William  Hoare  Hume    Wicklow  County, 

62  §  Edward  Hoare  .    .    .    Though  very  old  and  stone  blind,  attended 

all  debates,  and  sat  np  all  the  nights  of 
debate. 

63  §  Bartholomew  Hoare  .    King^s  Counsel. 

04  §  Alexander  Hamilton  .    King's  Counsel;  son  to  the  Baron. 
'05  §  Hon.  A.  C.  Hamilton. 


ORIGII^AL  RED  LIST. 


373 


NAMES. 

CO  §  Sir  F.  Hopkins,  Bart. 

67  t  H.  Irwin. 

68  *  Gilbert  King. 

69  t  Cliarles  King. 

70  *  Hon.  Robert  King. 

71  *  Lord  Kingsborougli  . 

72  Hon.  George  Knox  . 

73  f  Francis  Knox   .    .  . 

74  *  Rt.  Hon.  Henry  King. 

75  f  Major  King.     .    •  . 

76  §  Gustavus  Lambert 

77  *  David  Latouche,  jua  . 

78  §  Robert  Latouche.  .  . 

79  §  John  Latouche,  sen. 

80  §  John  Latouche,  jun.  . 
81*  Clxarles  Powell  Leslie. 
83  *  Edward  Lee  .... 

83  f  Sir  Thomas  Lighten, 

Bart.  

84  *  Lord  Maxwell  .    .  . 

85  *  Alexander  Montgomery 

86  §  Sir  J.  M'Cartney,  Bart. 

87  §  WtUiam  Thomas  Mansel 

88  §  Steplien  Moore   .    .  . 

89  §  John  Moore. 
90.    Arthur  Moore  .    .  . 

91  *  Lord  Mathew    .    .  . 

92  §  Thomas  Mahon. 

93  §  John  Metge  .... 

94  §  BicJiard  NeuUe  .  . 


OBSERVATION. 


Prevailed  on  to  take  money  to  vacate,  in 
1800,  and  let  in  a  Unionist. 


95  §  Thomas  Newenham 

96  *  Charles  O'Hara  . 
S7*  Sir  Edward  O'Brien 


(Kow  Earl  Kingston.) 
Brother  to  Lord  Northland;  lukewarm. 
Vacated  his  seat  for  Lord  Castlereagh. 
See  Mr.  Crowe's  Letter. 

He  opened  the  Bishop  of  Clogher's  Borough 

in  1800. 
Brother  to  Countess  Talbot. 
A  Banker. 

Ditto. 

Ditto. 
A  Banker. 

Member  for  the  County  of  Waterford; 
zealous. 

A  Banker. 

Died  Lord  Farnham. 

Much  distressed,  but  could  not  be  bribed; 

nephew,  by  affinity,  to  the  Speaker. 
Actually  pyrchmed  by  Lord  Castlereagh. 
Changed  sides  on  Lord  Corry's  motion. 

Now  Judge  of  the   Common  Pleas;  a 

stanch  Anti-L'nionist. 
(Now  Earl  Llandaff),  Tipperary  County. 

Brother  to  the  Baron  of  the  Exchequer. 
Had  been  a  dismissed  treasury  officer ;  sold 

his  vote  to  he  reinstated,  changed  sides, 

See  Black  List. 
The  Author  of  various  Works  on  Ireland; 

one  of  the  steadiest  Anti-Unionists. 
Sligo  County. 
Clare  County. 


874 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PPwESENT, 


98 


101.  llciiry  Osboru  .  . 
103     Right  Hon.  Geo.  Ogle 

103  §  Josepli  Preston   .  . 

104  *  John  Preston   ,    ,  . 


NAMES.  OBSERVATION. 

3ugli  O'Donnel  .    A  most  ardent  Anti-Unionist;  dismissed 

from  his  regiment  of  Mayo  militia 

99  §  James  Moore  O'Donnell  Killed  by  Mr.  Bingham  in  a  duel. 

100  j5  Hon  \V.  O'Callahau  .    Brother  to  Lord  Lismore. 

Could  uot  be  bribed;  his  brother  was. 

,  AVexford  County. 
An  eccentric  character;  could  not  be  pur- 
cliased. 

Of  Belintor,  was  purchasedhy  a  title,  (Lord 
Tara,)  aud  his  brother,  a  Parson,  got  u 
living  of  £700  a  year. 

105  "  Rt.  Hon  Sir  J.  Parnell  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  dismissed  by 

Lord  Castlereagh;  incorruptible. 

106  §  Henry  Parnell, 

107  §  W.  C.  Plunkct    .      Now  Lord  Plunket. 

108  *  Rt.  Hon.  W.  B.  Pon- 

sonby  Afterwards  Lord  Ponsonby. 

109  §  J.  B.  Ponsonby    .    .    Afterwards  Lord  Ponsonby. 

110  §  Major  W.  Ponsonby.    A  General  killed  at  Waterloo. 

111  ^  Rt.  Hon.  G.  Ponsonby  Afterwards    Lord    Chancellor;   died  of 

apoplex3^ 

112*  Sir  Lawrence  Parsons   Kings  County,  now  Earl  of  Rosse;  made 

a  remarkal)ly  tine  speech. 

113  §  Richard  Power   .    .    Nephew  to  the  Barou  of  the  Exchequer. 

114  *  Abal  Bam  Changed  sides. 


115  *  Gustavus  Rochfort 


116  §  John  S.  Rochfort 

117  SirWm.  Richardson 

118  §  John  ReiUy  .    .  . 
110    William  E.  Reily 

120  §  Charles  Ruxton 

121  §  William  P.  Ruxton 

122  *  Clotworthy  Rowley 

123  §  William  Rowley  . 

124  §  J.  Rowley    .    .  . 

125  *  Francis  Sauuderson 

126  *  William  Smyth  . 

127  *  James  Stewart. 

128  ^  Hon.  W.  J.  Skemngton 

129  *  Francis  Savage. 

130  §  Francis  Synge. 


County  Wcstmeath;  seduced  b}'  Govern- 
ment, and  changed  sides  in  1800.  Sec 
Black  List. 
Nephew  to  the  Speaker. 

Changed  sides.    See  Black  List. 


Changed  sides. 
Changed  sides. 
Changed  aides, 

Westmeath. 


See  Black  List. 
See  Black  List. 
See  Black  List. 


ORIGINAL  BLACK  LIST. 


NAMES.  OBSERVATIOX. 

131  §  ncnry  Stewart. 

13-3  §  Sir  R.  St.  George  Bart.  * 

133  §  Hon.  Benj.  Stratford  .    Now  Lord  Aldborough;  gained  by  Lord 

Castlereagh;  changed  sides.     See  Blaok 
List. 

134  *  Nathaniel  Sneyd. 

135  *  Thomas  Stannus  .    .    Changed  sides.    Lord  Portarlington's  Mem- 

ber.   See  Black  List. 

136  §  Robert  Shaw  ...    A  Banker. 

137  §  Rt.  Hon.  Wm.  Saurin  Afterwards  Attorney-General;  a  steady  but 

calm  Anti-Unionist. 

138  §  William  Tighe. 

139  §  Henry  Tigbc 

140  §  John  Taylor. 

141  §  Thomas  Townshend. 

1^ '*  Hon.  Richard  Trench.    Voted  against  the  Union  in  1799;  was 

gained  by  Lord  Castlereagh,  whose  rela- 
tive he  married,  and  voted  for  it  iu 
1800;  was  creaied  an  Earl,  and  made  an 
Ambassador  to  Holland;  one  of  the 
Vienna  Carvers ;  and  a  Dutch  Marquess. 

143  *  Hon.  R.  Taylor. 

144  §  Charles  Vereker  .    .    (Now  Lord  Gort,)  City  Limerick, 

145  §  Owen  Wynne. 

146  *  John  Waller. 

147  §  E  D.  Wilson. 

148*  Tlwmas  Whaley   .    .    First  voted  against  the  Vmon;  purchased 

by  Lord  Castlereagh;  he  was  Lord 
Clare's  brother-in-law.    See  Black  List. 

149  *  Nicholas  Westby. 

150  *  John  Wolfe    .    .    .    Member  for  the  County  Wicklow:  Colonel 

of  the  Kildare  Militia;  refused  to  vote 
for  Government,  and  was  cashiered; 
could  not  be  purchased. 


ORIGINAL  BLACK  LIST. 

NAMES.  OBSERVATIONS. 

1  R  Aldridge  ....    An  English  Clerk  in  the  Secretary's  office; 

m)  connection  with  Ireland. 

2  Henry  Alexander   .    .    Chairman  of  Ways  and  Means;  cousin  of 


370 


iii::la:n^d,  past  and  present. 


NAMES.  OBSERVATION. 

Lord  Caledon ;  his  brother  made  a 
Bishop;  himself  a  Colonial  Secretary  at 
the  Cape  of  Good  Hope. 

3  Richard  Archdall  .    .   Commissioner  of  the  Board  of  Works. 

4  William  Bailey  .    .    .    Commissioner  of  the  Board  of  Works. 

5  Rt.  Hon.  J.  Beresford.    First  Commissioner  of  Revenue;  brother- 

in-law  to  Lord  Clare. 

6  J.  Beresford,  jua.,  .    .    Then  Purse-bearer  to  Lord  Clare,  after- 

wards a  Parson,  and  now  Lord  Decies. 

7  Marcus  Beresford  .    .    A  Colonel  in  the  Army,  son  to  the  Bishop, 

Lord  Clare's  nephew. 

8  J.  Bingham    ....    Created  a  Peer;  e:ot  £8.000  for  two  seats; 

and  £15,000  compensation  for  Tuam. 
This  gentleman  first  offered  himself  for 
sale  to  the  Anti-Unionist;  Lord  Clan- 
morris. 

9  Joseph  H.  Blake.    .    .    Created  a  Peer — Lord  Wallscourt,  etc. 

10  Sir  J.  G.  Blackwood   .    Created  a  Peer — Lord  Dufferin. 

11  Sir  John  Blaquiere .    .    Numerous    Offices    and   Pensions,  and 

created  a  Peer — Lord  De  Blaquiere. 

12  Anthony  Botet  .    .    .    Appointed  Commissioner  of  the  Barrack 

Board,  £500  a  year. 

13  Colonel  Burton  .    .    .    Brother  to  Lord  Conyngham;  a  Colonel  in 

the  Army. 

14  SirRicJiard  Butler  .    .    Purchased  and  changed  sides ;  against 

the  Union  in  1799,  and  for  it  in  1800; 
Cash. 

15  Lord  Boyle    ....    Son  to  Lord  Shannon;  X\\ex  got  VlH  immense 

sum  of  money  for  their  seats  and  Bor- 
oughs; at  £15,000  each  Borough. 

16  Rt.  Hon.  D.  Brown    .    Brother  to  Lord  Sligo. 

17  Stewart  Bruce   .    .    .    Gentleman  Usher  at  Dublin  Castle;  now 

a  Baronet. 

18  George  Burdet  .    .    .    Commissioner  of  a  Public  Board.  £500  per 

annum. 

19  George  Bunbury     .    .    Commissioner  of  a  Public  Board,  £500  per 

annum. 

20  Arthur  Brown    .   .    .    Changed  sides  and  principles,  and  was  ap- 

pointed Sergeant;  in  1799  opposed  the 
Union,  and  supported  it  in  1800:  he  was 
Senior  Fellow  in  Dublin  University:  lost 
his  seat  the  ensuing  election,  and  died. 


ORIGINAL  BLACK  LIST. 


O  i  t 


21 
22 


NAMES. 

-Bagwell,  sen., 
-Bagicelt,  jun., 


23  William  Bagwell  . 

24  Lord  Casilereagh  . 

25  George  Cavendish  • 

26  Sir  H.  Cavendish  . 

27  Sir  R.  Chinnery  . 

28  James  Cane  .    .  . 

29  Thomas  Casey  .  . 

30  Colonel  C.  Pope  . 

31  General  Cradock 

32  James  Crosby    .  . 

33  Edward  Cooke  .  . 

34  Charles  H.  Coote  . 


35  Rt.  Hon.  L  Corry.  . 

36  Sir  J.  Cotter  .  •.  . 

37  Richard  Cotter. 

38  Hon.  H.  Creighton  )  . 

39  Hon.  J.  Creighton 

40  W.  A.  Crosbie   .  . 

41  Jam€;s  Cuffe   .    .  . 

42  General  Dunne   .  . 


.  OBSERVATION. 

Chang-ed  TWiCK;  got  half  the  patronage  of 
Tipperary;  his  son  a  Dean,  etc.,  etc. 

Changed  twice;  got  the  Tipperary  Regi- 
ment, etc. 

His  brother. 

The  Irish  Minister. 

Secretary  to  the  Treasury  during  pleasure; 
son  to  Sir  Henry. 

Receiver  General  during  pleasure;  deeply 
indebted  to  the  Crov\u. 

Placed  in  office  after  the  Union. 

Renegaded.  and  got  a  pension. 

A  Commission  of  Bankrupts  under  Lord 
Clare;  made  a  city  Magistrate.  . 

Renegaded:  got  a  Regiment,  and  the 
patronage  of  his  country. 

Returned  by  Government :  much  military 
rank;  now  Lord  Howden. 

A  regiment  and  the  patronage  of  Kerry, 
jointly;  seconded  the  Address. 

Under-Secretary  at  the  Castle. 

Obtained  a  Regiment  (which  "was  taken 
from  Colon6l  Warburton.)  patronage  of 
Queens  County,  and  a  peerage.  (Lord 
Castle-coote,)  and  £7,500  in  cash  for  his 
interest  at  the  Borough  of  Maryborough 
in  which,  in  fact,  it  was  proved  before  the 
Commissioners  that  Sir  Jonah  Barring- 
ton  had  more  interest  than  his  Lordship. 

Appointed  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
on  dismissmal  of  Sir  John  Parnell. 

Privately  brought  over  by  cash. 

Renegaded  (see  Red  List)  privately  pur- 
chased. 

Comptroller  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant's 
Household. 

Natural  son  to  Mr.  Cuflfe  of  the  Board  of 
Works,  his  father  created  Lord  Tyrawly. 

Returned  for  Maryborough  by  the  united 
influence  of  Lord  Castle-coote  and- 
Government,  to  keep  out  Mr.  Barring- 
ton;  gained  the  election  by  only  onr. 


378 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 


NAMES.  OBSERVATION. 

43  William  Elliot   .    .    .    Secretary  at  the  Castle. 

44  General  Eustace  ...    A  Kegimeut. 

45  Lord  C.  Fitzgerald  .    .    Duke  of  Leinster's  brother;  a  Pension  and 

a  Peerage;  a  Sea  Officer  of  no  repute. 

46  Rt.  Hon.  W.  Fitzgerald. 

47  Sir.  C.  Fortescue  .    .    .    Renegaded  (see  Red  List)  Officer  King  at 

Arms. 

48  A.  Fergussou  ....    Got  a  place  at  the  Barrack  Board,  £500  a 

year  and  a  Baronetcy. 

49  Luke  Fox  Appointed   Judge    of    Common  Pleas; 

nephew  by  marriage  to  Lord  Ely. 

50  William  Fortescue   .    .    Got  a  Secret  Pension,  out  of  a  fund(£3,000 

a  year.)  intrusted  by  Parliament  to  the 
Irish  Government,  solely  to  reward  Mr. 
Reynolds,  Cope,  etc.  etc.,  and  those  who 
imformed  against  rebels. 

51  J.  Galbraith   ....    Lord  Abercorn's  Attorney;  got  a  Baronet- 

age. 

52  Henry  D.  Grady  .    .    .    First  Counsel  to  the  Commissioners. 

53  Richard  Hare  ....    Put  two  members  into  Parliament,  and 

was  created  Lord  Ennismore  for  their 
votes. 

54  William  Hare  ....    His  son. 

55  Col  B.  Henniker   .    .    .A  regiment,  and  paid  £3,500  for  his  Seat 

by  the  Commissioners  of  Compensation. 

56  Peter  Holmes  ....    A  Commissioner  of  Stamps. 

57  George  Hatton  ....    Appointed  Commissioner  of  Stamps. 

58  Hf)n.  J.  Hutchinson  .    .    A  General— Lord  Hutchinson. 

59  Hugh  Howard  ....    Lord  Wicklow's  brother,  made  Postmaster 

General. 

60  Wm.  Handcock,  (Athlone)An  extraordinary  instance;  he  made  and 

sang  songs  against  the  Union  in  1799,  at 
a  public  dinner  of  the  Opposition,  and 
made  and  sang  songs  for  it  in  1800;  he 
got  a  Peerage. 

61.  John  Hobson  ....    Appointed  Storekeeper  at  the  Castle  Ordi- 
nance. 

62  Col.  G.  Tackson    ...    A  Regiment. 

63  Denham  Jepbson  .    .    .    Master  of  Horse  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant. 

64  Hon.  G.  Jocelyn  .    .    .    Promotion  in  tlie  Army,  and  his  brother 

consecrated  Bishop  of  Lismore. 

65  William  Jones  .... 

66  Theophilus  Jones.    .    .    Collector  of  Dublin. 


ORIGINAL  BLACK  LIST. 


379 


NAMES.  OBSERVATION. 

67  Miij or  General  Jackson.    A  Regiraent. 

68  William  JohnsoQ  .    .    .    Returned  to  Parliament  by  Lord  Castle- 

reagh,  as  he  himself  declared,  "to  putaa 
end  to  it;"  appointed  a  Judge  since.  ^ 

69  Robert  Johnson   .    .    .    Seceded  from  his  patron,  Lord  Dovvnshire^ 

and  was  appointed  a  Judge. 

70  JohnKeane  A  Renegade;  got  a  Pension;  See  Red  List. 

71  James  Kearny  ....    Returned  by  Lord  Clifton  being  his  Attor- 

ney; got  an  office. 
73  Henry  Kemmis .    .    .    .   Son  to  the  Crown  Solicitor. 

73  William  Knot  ....   Appointed  a   Commissioner  of  Appeals 

£800  a  year. 

74  Andrew  Knox. 

75  Colonel  Keatinge. 

76  Rt.  Hon.  Sir.  H.  Langrishe.A  Commissioner  of  the  Revenue,  received 

£15,000  cash  for  his  patronage  at  Kuoct- 
oper. 

77  T.  Lingray,  sen.,    .    .    Commissioner  of  Stamps,  paid  £1,500  for 

his  patronage. 

78  T.  Lindsray,  jun.,  .    .    Usher  at  the  Castle,  paid  £1,500  for  his 

patronage. 

79  J.  Longfield  Created  a  Peer;  Lord  Longneville. 

80  Capt.  J.  Longfield  .    .    Appointed  to  the  office  of  Ship  Entries  of 

Dublin  taken  from  Sir  Jonah  Barring- 
ton* 

81  Lord  Loftus  ....    Son  to  Lord  Ely,  Postmaster-General;  got 

£30,000  for  their  Boroughs,  and  created 
an  English  Marquis. 

82  General  Lake     .    ,    •   An  Englishman  (no  connection  with  Ire- 

land;)  re(urned  by  Lord  Castlcreagh, 
solely  to  vote  for  the  Union. 

83  Rt.  Hon.  David  Latouche 

84  General  Loftus  .    .    .    A  General;  got  a  Regiment;  cousin  to  Lord 

Ely. 

85  Francis  M'Namara  .    ,    Cash  and  a  private  pension,  paid  by  Lord 

Castlcreagh. 

86  Ross  Mahon  ,    ,    .   ,    Several  appointments  and  places  by  Govern- 

ment. 

87  Richard  Martin  .    .    .    Commissioner  of  Stamps. 

88  Rt.  Hon.  Monk  Mason    A  commissioner  of  Revenue. 

89  H.  D.  Massy      .    .    .    Received  £4,000  cash. 

90  Thomas  Mahon. 

01  A.  E.  M'Naghten  .    .    Appointed  a  Lord  of  the  Treasury,  etc. 


380 


IllELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


NAMES. 

92  Stephen  Moore  .    .  . 

93  N.  M.  Moore. 

94  lit.  Hou.  Lodge  Morris 

95  Sir.  R.  Musgrave   .  . 

96  James  M'Cleland    .  . 

97  Col.  C.  M'Donnel   .  . 

98  Richard  Magenness 


OBSERVATION. 

A  Postmaster  at  will. 
Created  a  Peer. 

Appointed   Receiver   of    the  Customs, 

£1,200  a  year. 
A  Barrister— appointed  Solicitor  General, 

and  then  a  Baron  of  the  Exchequer. 
Commissioner  of  Imprest  Accounts,  £500 

per  annum. 
Commissioner  of  Imprest  Accounts,  £500 

per  annum. 
A  Pensioner  at  will. 


99  Thomas  Nesbit  .    .  . 
100  Sir   W.    G.  Newcomen, 

Bart  Bought,  (see  'Memoir  ante,)  and  a  Peerage 

for  his  wife. 
Renegaded;  reinstated  as  Teller  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. 

A  Regiment,  and  Lord  of  the  Treasury. 
A  Barrister;  appointed  a  Judge  of  the 

King's  Bench 
Appointed  First  Council  Commissioner. 
Master  of  the  Ordnance. 
A  Regiment;  killed  at  New  Orleans. 
A  Peerage — Lord  Dunalley. 


101  Richard  Neville 

102  William  Odell 

103  Charles  Osborne 


104  C  M.  Ormsby   .  . 

105  Admiral  Pakenham 

106  Col.  Pakenham  .  . 

107  H.  S.  Prittie      .  . 

108  R.  Pennefather. 

109  T.  Prendergast  .  . 


110  Sir  Richard  Quin  . 

111  Sir  Boyle  Roche  . 

112  R.  Rutledge. 

113  Hon.  C.  Rowley  . 

114  Hon,  H.  Skeffington 

115  William  Smith  .  . 

116  H.  M.  Sandford  . 

117  Edmond  Stanley 

118  John  Staples. 

119  John  Stewart     .  . 

120  John  Stratton. 


An  office  in  the  Court  of  Chancery;  £500 

a  year;  his  brother  Crown  Solicitor. 
A  Peerage. 

.Gentlemen  Usher  at  the  Castle. 

Renegaded,  and  appointed  to  office  by  Lord 
Castlcreagh. 

Clerk  of  a  Paper  Office  of  the  Castle,  and 
£7,500   for  his  patronage. 

A  Barrister;  appointed  a  Baron  of  the  Ex- 
chequer. 

Created  a  Peer;  Lord  Mount  Sandford. 
Appointed  Commissioner  of  Accounts. 

Appointed  Attorney-General,  and  created 
a  Baronet. 


ORIGINAL  BLACK  LIST.  3S1 

NAMES.  OBSERVATION. 

121  Hon.  B.  Stratford   .    ,    Renegaded  to  gel  £7,500,  his  balf  of  the 

compensation  tor  Baltinglass. 

122  Hon.  J.  Stratford    .    .    Paymaster  of  Foreign  Forces,  £1,300  a 

year,  and  £7,5u0  for  Baltinglass. 
13J  Uichard  Sharkey    .    .    An  obscure  Barrister;  appointed  a  Countv 

Judge. 

124  Thomas  Stannus     .    .  Renegaded. 

125  J  Savage. 

126  Rt.  Hon.  J  Toler  .    c    Attorney- General;  his  wife,  an  old  woman 

created  a  Peeress;  himself  made  Chief 
Justice  and  a  Peer. 

127  Frederick  Trench  ,    ,    Appointed  a  Commissioner  of  the  Board  of 

Works.  • 

128  Hon  R.  Trench     .    .    A  Barrister;  created  a  Peer,  and  made  an 

Ambassador.    See  Red  List. 

129  Charles  Trench  .    •   .    His  brother;  appointed  Commissioner  of 

Inland  Navigation — a  new  office  created 
by  Lord  Cornwallis,  for  rewards. 

130  Richard  Talbot. 

131  P.  Tottenham    .    .   .    Compensation  for  patronage;  cousin,  and 

politically  connected  with  Lord  Ely. 

132  Lord  Tyrone     .    .   .    104  offices  in  the  gift  of  his  family ;  pro- 

posed the  Union  in  Parliament,  by  a 
speech  written  in  the  crown  of  his  hat. 

133  Charles  Tottenham     .    In  office. 

134  Townsend    .    .   A  Commissioner. 

135  Robert  Tighe     .    .    .    Commissioner  of  Barracks. 

136  Robert  Uniack  ...    A  Commissioner;  connected  with  Lord 

Clare. 

137  James  Verner    ...    Called  the  Prince  of  Orange. 

138  J  O  Vandeleur     .    .    Commissioner  of  the  Revenue;  his  brother 

a  Judge. 

139  Colonel  Wemyss    .    .    Collector  of  Kilkenny. 

140  Henry  Westenraw  .    .    Father  of  Lord  Rossmore.  who  is  of  the 

very  reverse  of  his  father's  politics. 


382 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

ABSTRACT  AND  LISTS. 

Abstract  of  Volunteers — List  and  Names  of  the  Vol- 
unteers— List  of  the  Original  Planters — List  of 
Peerages — List  of  Governors. 

VOLUNTEERS. 

Abstract  of  the  effective  Men  in  the  different  Volun- 
teer Corps,  whose  Delegates  met  at  Dungannon,  and 
those  who  acceded  to  their  Resolutions,  and  to  the 
Requisitions  of  the  House  of  Commons  of  Ireland,  the 
16th  of  April,  1782. 

Commander  in  Chief, 
Earl  of  Charlemont. 

Generals  — Duke  of  Leinster,  Earl  of  Tyrone,  Earl  of  Aldborough^ 
Lord  De  Vesci,  Sir  B.  Denny,  Rt.  lion.  George  Ogle.  Sir  James 
Tynte,  Earl  of  Clanricarde.  Earl  of  ^ruskerry.  Sir  William  Parsons, 
lion.  J.  Butler,  Right  Hon.  Henry  King.* 


province  op  ulster. 

Dungannon  Meeting,  153  Corps   2G,38<^ 

Twenty-one  Corps  since  acceded   3,988 

Infantry  since  acceded,  two  Battalions   1,250 

Six  Corps  of  Cavalry   200 

Eight  Corps  of  Artillery   420 


33,088 

Ulster  Corps  which  have  acceded  since  1st  of  April,  35  of  Infan- 
try and  1  Battalion   1,972 

Two  of  Cavalry   92 


Total  of  Ulster   34,152 


VOLUNTEEPwS.  383 
Ariillery. 

Six  Pounders   16 

Three  Pounders   10 

Uowitzers   6 

Total  Pieces  of  Artillery   32 

PROVINCE  OF  CONNAUGHT. 

Ballinasloe  Meeting,  59  Corps   6,897 

Thirty-one  Corps  of  lufunlry  who  since  acceded   5,781 

Cavalry,  8  Corps   421 

Artillery   250 


13,340 

Accceded  since  1st  of  April,  four  Corps  of  Infantry  and  one  of 
Cavalry   987 


Total  of  Connaught  14,330 

Artillery. 

Six  Pounders   10 

Three  Pounders   10 

Total  Pieces  of  Ariillery   20 

*  Besides  these  the  Volunteers  at 

PROVINCE  OF  MUNSTER. 

City  and  County  of  Cork   5,123 

Sixty-eight  other  Corps  Infantry  in  the  Province  7,987 

Cavalry  of  the  Province  returned,  15  Corps   7,10 

Artillery,  9  Corps   221 

14,041 

Acceded  since  1st  April,  15  Corps  of  Infantry  3,921 

Two  Corps  of  Cavalry   94 

Total  of  Munster  18,056 

Artillery. 

Six  Pounders   ^4 

Three  Pounders   ^4 

Howitzer?   4 

Total  Pieces  of  Artillery   32 

PROVINCE  OF  LEINSTER. 

139  Corps,  whose  Delegates  met  at  Dublin,  April,  17. 1782   10,983 

Ten  Corps  of  Cavalry  who  before  acceded  and  no  delegates  sent..  580 

Nineteen  ditto  of  Infantry  4.398 

Artillery,  9  Corps   '^22 


Total  Lcinster  22,283 


384 


IllELAND,  TAST  AND  PKESENT, 


Artillery. 

Nine  Pounders  '   2 

Six  Pounders   16 

Three  Pounders   14 

Howitzers     6 

Total  Pieces  of  Artillery   38 

Total  Numbers. 

Ulster  34,153 

Connaught     14,336 

Munster   18.056 

Leinster   22,283 

Total   88,827 

Twenty-two  Corps  have  also  acceded  but  made  no  returns;  esti- 
mated at   12,000 

Making  in  all  nearly  a  grand  Total  of  100,000 

Artillery,  130  pieces. 


LIST  AND  NAMES  OF  THE  VOLUNTEERS. 

Aghavoc  Loyals. — Associated  July  1st,  1782;  scarlet,  faced  blue.  Cap- 
tain Robert  White. 

Aldborough  Legion. — August,  1777;  scarlet,  face  black,  silver  lace. 
Colonel  Earl  of  Aldborough. 

Ards  Battilion. — Colonel  Patrick  Savage. 

Ardec  Rangers. 

Arlington  Light  Cavalr3^ — September  18th,  1779:  scarlet,  faced  jrreen, 
yellow  buttons.  Captain  George  Gore;  Lieutenant  J.  Warburtoo; 
Cornet  Jonathan  Clietwood. 

Arran  Phalanx— Scarlet,  faced  white.  Captain  Dawson;  Lieutenant 
Frederick  Gore ;  Earl  of  Arran. 

Armagh  Volunteers. 

Athy  Independents.-Scptember,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  white.  Captain 
Robert  Johnson. 

Athy  Volunteers. --September,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  white. 
Athy  Rangers.— Captain  Weldon. 
Attorney  Corps. 

Aughnacloy  Battalion— Scarlet,  faced  white.    Colonel  P.  Alexander. 
Aughnacloy  Volunteers.— Captain  Thomas  Forsyth. 
Ashfield  Volunteers.— Blue,  faced  blue.    Captain  H.  Clements. 
Aughrim  Corps  of  Cork.— Mirch  17th.  1778;  scarlet,  faced  scarlet; 

edged  white.    Colonel  Richard  Longfleld;  Major  Edward  Jameson; 

Captain  Samuel  Rowland. 


VOLUOTEEPwS. 


385 


•\uo-lirim  Lii^lit  Horse.— Scarlet,  faced  pea- green.  Colonel  Walter 
Lambert. 

Bantry  Volunteers.— July  12tli,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black,  edged 
white. 

Balliutcmple  Forresters.— July  13th,  1779;  scarlet  faced  blue.  Captain 

Stewart. 
Ballvroom  Cavalry. 

Barony  Rangers.— March  17th,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  black;  Colonel  An- 
drew Arinltroug;  Captain  Roljert  Shervington. 

Barony  of  Forth  Corps.— January  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  blue.  Major 
Hughes. 

Ballyleek  Ringers —1779;  scarlet,  fa33Ll   white,  gold  lace.  Colonel 

John  Montogomery. 
Bandon  C.ivalry.— Colonel  S.  Stawell;  Major  John  Travers. 
B:indon  Independent  Company.  — Colonel  Francis  Bernard;  Captain 

Robert  Seale 

Ballina  and  Ardnaree  (loyal)  Volunteers.— July  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced 

black  Colonel  Right  Honorable  Henry  King;  Major  Henery  Cary. 
Ballymascanlan  Ringjrs(Co.  Louth).    Captain  R.  M'Neale. 
Belfast  Union.— June  12th,  1773;  scirl!.'!:.  1x22^  blue.    C  iptain  Lyon^. 
Belfast  Light  Dragoons.— March  26th,  1781;  scarlet,  faced  green,  silver 

lace.    Captain  Burden. 
Belfast  Battalion. — April.  1779;  .•^carlet,  faced  black.    Colonel  Stewart 

Banks;  Major  Brown. 
Belfast  Volunteer  Compan3^— April  6th,  1778;  blue,  faced  blue,  laced 

hats.    Colonel  Brown;  Captain  S.  M'Tier. 
Belfast  First  Volunteer  Company.— March  17th,  1778;  scarlet  faced 

black.    Captain  Waddel  Cunningham. 
Belfast  United  Volunteer  Companies. 

Blackwatcr  Volunteers.- Colonel  Richard  Aldworth;  Lieutenant-Col- 
onel Robert  Stanard. 

Blackpool  Association.— Colonel  John  Harding;  Lieutenant-Colonel 
Thomas  Barry. 

Blarney  Volunteers.— Lieutenant-Colonel  Daniel  Cribs;  Captain  Edward' 
0'Dono;^hue. 

Burros  Volunteers.— 1779 ;  scarlet,  faced  black.    Colonel  Kavanagh. 
Burros  in  Ossory  Ranger.*^.— August  1st,  1779:  scarlet  faced  black,  sil- 

ver   epaulets.    Captain-Commandant  James  Stephens;  Lieutenant 

Erasmus  Burrowes;  Ensiirn  Walter  Stephens. 
Boyne  Volunteer  Corp.^j.- Colonel  John  Bagwell;  Major  John  Bass;, 

Lieutenant  Chas.  Wilcocks. 
Builders'  Corps.— November  4th,  1781;  blue,  faced  blue,  edged  scarlet.. 

Colonel  Road. 

Burros-a-kane  Volunteers.— Major  Thomas  Stony.  , 


886 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


Castlebar  Independents  — March  17th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  deep  green. 

Colonel  Patrick  Randal  M'Donald. 
Castlebar  Volunteers. — Lieut.  Colonel  Jordan.  M.  S. 
Carrick-on-Shannon    Infantry. — August,   1779;  scarlet,   faced  blue. 

Lieutenant-Colonel  Peyton. 
Castle  Mount  Garret  Volunteers. — 1778;  scarlet,  faced  deep  green. 

Colonel  D.  G.  Browne;  Lieutenant  John  Henry. 
Callan  Union. —April  1st,  1779,  green,  edged  white.    Captain  Elliott. 
Caledon  Volunteers. — Captain  James  Dawson. 

Carlow  Association. — September  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Major 
Eustace,  M.S. ;  Lieutenant  and  Adjutant  T  Proctor. 

Carrick-on-Suir  Union. — Captain  Edward  Morgan  Mandeville. 

Carberry  Independent  Company.— Captain  John  Townsend. 

Carricktergus  Company. —  April  8d,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  pea  green. 
Captain  iMarriot  Dalway,  Lieutenant  Rice. 

Carton  Union. — Colonel  H.  Cane. 

Castlecomer  Hunters  and  Light  Infantry.— Colonel  Lord  Wandesford. 

Caslledcrmot  Volunteers. — Captain  Robert  Power. 

Castledurrow  Light  Horse.— August,  1778;  green,  edged  white.  Cap- 
tain Richard  Lawrenson. 

Castledurrow  Volunteers.  — July  1st,  1779;  green  edged  white,  silver 
lace.    Captain  Bathorn. 

Castletown  Union.— Captain  Com.  Rt.  Hon.  T.  Connolly. 

Cavan  (County)  Volunteers.— Colonel  Enery. 

Cavan  Independent  Vofhnteers. 

Carlow  (County)  Legion.  — September  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  lemon 
color.    Colonel  J  Rochfort;  Major  Henry  Bunbury. 

Cbarleville  Tnfantry.-Jnnuary  4th,  1779;  blue,  faced  scarlet.  Colonel 
Cbidlov  Coote;  Major  H.  George^ Hatfield. 

Olanricai-de  Bri.nde.-June,  1783;  scarlet,  laced  blue.    Major  D  Arcy. 

Clnnricardo  Cavalrv.-Captain  David  Power. 

Clanriearde  Cavalry.-Colonel  Peter  Daly;  Captain  P.  D  Arcy 

Clanwilliam  Union. -Colonel  Earl  of  Clanwilliam;  Captain  Alleyn 

Clane  Rangerc. -September,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  white.  Captain  Mich- 
ael  Alvlmcr. 

Olonmel  Independents.— Colonel  Bagwell. 

Clonlonan  Lisrht  In  fjintrv.— Colonel  Georcre  Cibborne. 

Cork  Independent  Artillery.-March  .17th,  1781;  blue,  faced  scarlet, 
gold  lace.    Colonel  Richard  Hare. 

Constifntir>n  Re-iment  (Co.  Down).-Scarlet,  faced  yellow.  Captain 
Ford;  Captain  Gawin  Hamilton. 

Colcraine  Volunteers.-Colonel  Richardson;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Can- 
ning: Major  Lvle. 

Coolock  Independents,  North. -Captain  James  Walker. 


VOLUNTEERS. 


387 


Coolock  Independents. — Colonel  Richard  Talbot. 

Comber  Battalion. — Colonel  David  Ross. 

Connau^lit  Volunteers. 

Coimagh  Rangers. — Colonel  Percival. 

Connor  Volunteers. 

Cork  Union. — lleury  Hickmar,  Commandant. 

Cork  Cavalry.— Colonel  William  Chetwyud;  Major  John  Gilman;  Cap- 
tain John  Smvth. 
Crossniolina  Infantry  and  Artillery. 
CuUenagh  Rangers. — Colone\  Barrington. 

Culloden  Volunteer  Society  of  Cork, — Colonel  Ben jamin  Sarsfield ;  Cap- 
tain-Lieutenant Henry  Neusom. 

Ciirraghniore  Rangers. — Captain  Shee. 

Delvin  Volunteers.    Colonel  Thomas  Smyth. 

Donegal  First  Regiment. — Lieutenant- Colonel  Hamilton. 

Doneraile  Rangers. — Colonel  Right  Hon.  Lord  Doneraile;  Captain  Nich- 
olas G.  Evans. 

Down  Volunteers. — Captain  Henry  West. 

Down  First  Regiment  (2d  Battalion). — Blue,  faced  orange.  Colonel 
Stewart. 

Down  Fusileers. — Captain  Trotter. 

Drogheda  Association.— 1777;  scarlet,  faced  Pomona  green,  gold  laced 

hats.    Colonel  Mead  Ogle;  Lieutenant-Colonel  11.  Montgomery  Lyons; 

Major  William,  Cheshire;  Captain  Oliver   Fairtlough;  Lieutenant 

William  Holmes;  Lieutenant  John  Ackland. 
Dromore  Volunteers  (Co.  Kerry).  -Scarlet,  faced  green.    Colonel  John 

Mahony. 

Drumahare  Blues.— Lieutenant  Armstrong. 
Driimbridge  Volunteer.^^.— Major  A.  G.  Stewart. 

Dublin  Volunteers  -October  Cth,  1778;  blue,  faced  blue,  edcred  scarlet 

yellow  buttons.    Colonel  Duke  of  Leinster;  Lieutenant- Colonel  H. 

Monek:  Captain  N.  Worren;  Lieutenant  E.  Mrdlicott. 
Dublm  (County)  Light  Dragoons.-Auo-ust.  1779:  scarlet,  faced  black. 

Colonel  Right  Hon.  Luke  Gardiner;  Captain  Everard. 
Dublin  Independent  Volunteers -April  24th.  1780;  scnrlpt.  fnced  dark 

green     Colonel  Henry  Grattan;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Rijiht  Hon.  H. 

iMood;  Mnjor  Samuel  Cnnier. 
Duhallow  Rangers.-Colonol  the  Hon.  Charles  George  Percival;  Lieu- 

tenant-Co:onel  William  Wrixon. 
Diileek  Lisrht  Company.-July  1778;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Captain 

Ihomas  Trotter. 

Dunkerrin  Volunteers. -June  20,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Colonel 
J.  F.  Rolleston. 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Dunluviii  Li.i^lit  Dragoons. — 1777;  white,  faced  black,  silver  lace.  Col- 
onel M.  iSauuders;  Captain  Charles  Oulton. 
Duulaven  Corps. 

Dunmore  Rangers. — August,  1779;  green,  edged  white.    Colonel  Sir 

Robert  Staples,  Bart, 
Duudalk  Independent  Light  Dragoons. — Captain  Thomas  Read. 
Duudalk  Horse.— Scarlet,  faced  green.    I.  W.  Foster,  Esq. 
Dundalk  Arlillery, 

Duugarven  Volunteers. — Captain  Boate. 

Dungiven  Battalion. — June  14th,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Major 

Thomas  Bond;  Captain  Thomas  Fanning. 
Dungannon  Battalion. — Major  0"Duffia. 
Durrow  Light  Dragoons. 
Dungannon  Volunteers. — Captain  Richardson. 

Echiin  Vale  Volunteers. — October  lUth,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  white.  Cap- 
tain Chas.  Echiin. 

Edeuderry  Union. — May  1st,  1777;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Captain  Sbaw 
Cartland. 

Edgeworthstown  Battalion.— 1779;  blue,  faced  scarlet.    Colonel  Sir  W. 

G.  Newcomen,  Bart. 
English  Rangers.— August  29,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black,  silver  epaulets. 

Major  Thomas  Berry;  Captain  John  Drought;  Lieutenant  and  Adju- 

tant  J.  Clarke. 

Ennis  Volunteers.— October  12th,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Colonel 
William  Blood. 

Enniscorthy  Light  Dragoons.— Colonel  Phaire;  Captain  Charles  Daw, 
son: 

Enniscorthy  Artillery. -Colonel  Joshua  Pounden;  Major  William  Ben- 
nett. ^  , 

Eyrecourt  Buff..-June  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  buff,  gold  epaulets. 
Colonel  Giles  Eyre;  Captain  Stephen  Blake.  _ 

Independent  Enniskilleners.-Scarlet,  faced  black.    Captain  James  Arm- 

strong. 

Farhill  Liizht  Dragoons. —Captain  Robert  Cook. 

^  ^  .  ^      ^  *   i-^-Q-  c;parlct  faced  blue.  Colonel 

Fnrfullacrh  Rangers.— October  1st,  1<.9,  scariti,  lauc*^  u 

Rochfort  Tlnmc. 
Felhard  Independent's.— Mai'or  Matthew  Jacob.  _ 
First  Irish  Volunteers  (Co.  Wexf ordV -Lieutenant-Colonel  Dorenzy. 
Flnea  Indepcndcnts.-May  1st,  1779 ;  scarlet,  faced  blue.    Colonel  Co>  no 

Finiral  Light  Drngoons.-June  27th,  1783;  scarlet,  faced  white.  Lap- 
tain  Tbomas  Baker. 
Fin  "-lass  Volunteers  —Colonel  Secrave. 

Fore  Infantry  Loyalists. -Major  William  Pollard;  Captain  Nugent. 


I 


V'OLUNTEERS.  380 

Fore  Cavalry  and  Finca  Rangers. — Colonel  William  Gore  (Flnea  Ran- 
gers). 

French  Park  Light  Horse. — June,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black,  edged 
white,  gold  lace.  Lieutenant-Colonel  Edward  M'Dermott;  Lieuten- 
ant Owen  M'Dermott, 

Gal  way  Volunteers. — Colonel  Richard  Martin:  Major  John  Blake. 

Galway  (Coimty)  Volunteers. 

Garrycastle  Light  Cavalry. 

Glaninire  Union. — Colonel  Henry  Mannix;  Captain  Simon  Dring. 
Glen'  o   and  Kilemat  Regiment. — August  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  blue, 

silver  lace.    Colonel  CuUen. 
Glendeinrot  Battalion.— Colonel  George  Ash. 

Glin  Royal  Artillery. — xipril,  177G;  blue,  faced  blue,  scarlet  cuffs  and 
capes,  gold  lace.  Colonel  J.  Fitzgerald,  Knight  of  Glen;  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Thomas  Burgess. 

Glorious  Memory  Battalion. — 1780.  scarlet,  faced  grass  green.  Colonel 
T.  Morris  Jones. 

Goldsmith's  Corps. — March  17th,  1779;  blue,  faced  scarlet,  gold  lace. 

Captain  Benjamin  O'Brien. 
Gort  Light  Dragoons. — Major  James  Galbraith. 

Gortin  Volunteers. — lion.  Arthur  Colonel  Hamilton;  Lieutenant  Len- 
noR, 

Graigue  (Q.  C.)  Volunteers.  — May  1st,  1779;  blue,  faced  scarlet,  silver 

lace.    Colonel  B.  Bagnal. 
Granard  Infantry  Union  Brigade. — May  1st,  1782;  scarlet,  faced  blue. 

Captain  C.  E.  Hamilton. 
Granard  Volunteers. — Colonel  Earl  of  Granard;   Lieutenant  Robert 

Holmes. 

Hanover  Society. — Colonel  Richard  Hungerford. 
Hollywood  Volunteers. — Captain  John  Kennedy, 
Hibernian  Light  Dragoons. 
Ida  Light  Dragoons. — Major  Fitzgerald. 

Imoicilly  Horse  (County  Cork).— White,  edged  scarlet  Colonel  Roche ; 
Lieutenant-Colonel  Robert  M'Carthy. 

Imokilly  Blues.— Colonel  Robert  Uniacke  Fitzgerald. 

First  Volunteers  of  Ireland. —July  1st,  1766;  scarlet,  faced  blue.  Col- 
onel Sir  Vessey  Colclough,  Bart. 

Irish  Brigade.— Juno  5th,  1782;  scarlet,  faced  grass  green,  silver  lace. 
Captam  Charles  Abbott. 

Iveagli  First  Battalion.— Colonel  Sir  Richard  Johnston. 

Iverk  Volunters.— Colonel  Right  Hon.  John  Ponsonby;  Mm jor  Oslmrne. 

Inchegelno-h  Volunteci^.— Captain-Commandant  Jasper  Masters;  Lieu- 
tenant John  Boyle. 

Kanturk  Volunteers.— Colonel  Right  Hon.  Earl  of  Eirmont. 


390 


lUELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Kell's  Association. — November  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  green.  Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Benjamiu  Morris. 

Kerry  Legion — Colonel  Arthur  Blennerhasset;  Major  Godfrey. 

Kile  Volunteers. — August  1,  1771);  scarlet,  faced  blue,  silver  lace.  Col- 
onel Charles  White. 

Kilcullcii  Rangers* — September,  1770;  scarlet,  faced  white.  Captain 
Keating, 

Kilcoursey  Union. — Major  Bagot. 

Kilcooly  Trua  Blues.— 1779;  blue,  faced  white.    Colonel  Sir  William 

Barker,  Bart. 
Kildare  Iiifasitry. — Captain  James  Spencer. 

Kilkenny  Rangers. — January  2d,  1770;  green,  with  silver  lace.    Colonel  « 

Mossom;  Mayor  Wemyp. 
Kilkenny  Horse.  — Colonel  Cuffe. 

Kilkenny  Vohmteers. — June  lOlh,  1779;  blue,  faced  scarlet,  pold  lace. 

Colonel  Tlioin  is  Butler;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Kuaresborough;  Captains 

Laffan,  Shan  ilian,  Purcell ;  Ensign  Davis. 
Kilkenny  Independents. — Major  Roche. 
Killala  Infantry. 

Killinioon  B  ittalion  and  Artillery  Company. — Robert  White  Adjutant. 
Killinchy  (Firsi)  Independent  Volunteer  Company. — Captain  Gawiu 
Hamilton. 

Kiimore  Light  Infantry. — Matthew  Forde,  Jr. 

Kinnilea  and  Kirrikuriky  Union. — Colonel  Thomas  Roberts;  Lieutenant- 
Colonel  Thomas  Ilerrick;  M:ijor  John  Roberts. 

Kinsale  Volunteers. — Colonel  Kearney;  Captain  Leary. 

Killi van  Volunteers. — December  25Lh,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  green.  Major 
William  Smith. 

Kilmain  Horse  and  Infantry. 

Knox's  Independent  Troop. 

Lagan  Volunteers. 

Larne  Royal  Volunteers. 

Lawyer's  Corps.— April,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  gold  lace.  Colonel 

Townly  Pattent  Filgate. 
Lambeg.  Lisburne,  etc..  Volunteers.— R.  H.  M'Ncil,  Commandant. 
Lawyers'  Artillery.  — Captain  William  Holt. 

Larne  Independents.— April.  1782;  scarlet,  faced  bine.  Captain  White. 
Leap  Independents.- March  17th,  1780;  blue,  faced  blue,  edged  white. 

Colonel  Jonathan  Darby. 
Lecale  Battalion  (County  Down).— Lieutenant  Charles  McCarthy. 
liCitrim  Rangers. 

Liberty  Voluateers.— July,  1779:  scarlet,  faced  pea-green.    Colonel  Sir 

Edward  Newenham;  Captain  Edward  Newenham. 
Liberty  Artillery  — Captain  Tandy. 


VOLUNTEERS. 


391 


Limavady  Battalion. — November  7th,  1777;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Col- 
orjel  James  Boyle. 

Limerick  Loyal  Volunteers. — Brigadier- General  Thomas  Smyth;  Cap- 
tain George  Pitt. 

Limerick  Independents. — September,  1776;  scarlet,  faced  green,  silver 

lace.    Colonel  John  Prendergast;  Major  C.  Powell. 
Limerick  Volunteers. 

Limerick  Cavalry. — Scarlet,  faced  blue,  silver  lace. 
Liney  Volunteers. — 1778;  scarlet,  faced  blue.    Major  George  Dodwcll. 
Lisburne  Fusileers. — Scarlet,  faced  blue.    Lieutenant  John  Kenby. 
Lismore  Independent  Blues. 

Londonderry  Independent  Volunteer  Company. — Captain  J.  Ferguson. 
Londonderry  Fusileers. — June  14th,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  blue.  Lieu- 
tenant A.  Scott;  Adjutant  Henry  Delap. 
Lcngfords  (County)  Light  Hor^e. — Earl  of  Granard. 
Lopgford  Ligiit  Horse. — 1779;  buff,  faced  black.    Colonel  H.  Nisibitt. 
Lorha  Rangers.— Captain  Walsh. 
Louabal  Volunteers. 

Loughgall  Volunteers. — Captain  J.  Blackall. 
Loughinshillen  Volunteers. 

Loughinshillen  Battalion. — General  Right  Hon.  Thomas  Connolly ;  Col- 
onel Staples;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Dawson;  ]Major  John  Downing. 
Lower  Iveagh  Legion. 

Lowtherstown,  etc.,  Independent  Volunteers. --1779;  scarlet,  faced  black. 

Colonel  William  Irvine. 
Maguire's  Bridge  Volunteers. 

Magherafelt  (First)  Volunteers.— June.  1773;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Cap- 
tain A.  Tracy;  Lieutenant  Richard  Dawson ;  Ensigu  R.  Montgomery. 
Mallow  Independent  Volunteers. 

3Iallow  Boyue  Cavalry  and  Infantry. — (Cavalry)  Captain  Rogerson  Cot- 
ter; (Infantry)  Captain  Wm.  Gallway. 

Maryborough  Volunteers.— May.  1796;  scarlet,  faced  black.  Colonel  Sir 
J.  Parnell,  Bart. 

Meatli  Volunteers. 

Merchants  Corps.— June  9th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  gold  lace.  Cap- 
tain Theos.  Dixon;  Captain  C.  M.  M'Malion. 
Merchants'  Artillery.— Captain  George  Maquay. 

Mitchelstown  Independent  Light  Dragoons.— Scarlet,  faced  black.  Col- 
onel Right  Hon.  Lord  Kingsborough ;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Henry  Colo 
Bowen,  Esq. ;  Major  James  Badham  Thornhill. 

Monaghan  Independents. 

Monaghan  Rangers.— January  10th,  1780;  scarlet,  faced  white,  Colonel 

William  Foster. 
Monaghan  First  Battalion.— Colonel  J.  Montgomery. 


IKELAND,  PAST  AXD  PKESEXT. 


Monnsterevea  Volunteers. — October,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  while.  Cap- 
tain Houlton  Anderson. 

Mote  Ligbt  Infautr}'. — 1773;  scarlet,  faced  pea-green.  Colonel  Sir  H. 
Lj'nch  Blosse,  Bart. 

3Iountain  Ringers — August  loth,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black,  Colonel 
Bernard;  Major  George  Clarke;  Captain  John  Drought. 

^Mountmelick  Volunteers. 

>[ouiitDorris  Volunteers. 

Moycashel  Association. — Colonel  Hon.  Robert  Rochfort;  Captain  John 
Lyons. 

Mullingar  Volunteers. — Colonel  Earl  of  Granard;  Lieutenant-Colonel 

William  Judge. 
Munster  Volunteers. 

Muskerry  True  Blue  Light  Dragoons. — Colonel  Robert  Warren;  Lieu- 

tcnaut-Colonel  R.  Hutchinson;  Major  Samuel Swete. 
Muskerry  True  Blues. 

Muskerry  Volunteers. — Captain-Commandant  Thomas  Barker,  E.-q. 
Mullingar  Association. — Captain  Robert  Moore, 

Xass  R  ingers. — December  10, 1779-  scarlet,  faced  white.  Captain-Com- 
mandant R.  Neville. 
Newberry  Loyal  ^lusqueteers. 

Newmarket  Rangers. — Colonel  Boyle  Aldworth;  3Iajor  William  Allen. 
Newport  Volunteers. — Captain  Richard  Waller. 

New  Ross  Independent, — November  17th,  1777;  scarlet,  faced  black, 

Colonel  B.  Elliot. 
New  Castle  and  Donore  Union. — Captain  Verschoyle. 
Newry  Volunteers  (1st  Company). — Captain  Benson. 
Newry  Volunteers  (3d  Company). — Captain  David  BelL 
Newry  Rangers. — Captain  Benson. 

Newtown  and  Castlecomer  Battalion. — Captain-Commandant  Robert 
Stewart. 

Newry  1st  Regiment,  or  Newry  Legion. 

Offerlane  Blues.— October  10th,  1773;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  silver  lace 
Colonel  Luke  Flood. 

Orior  Grenadiers.-September  13th,  1779;  ccarlet.  faced  black.  Captain 
James  Dawson. 

Ormonrt  Independence.— Colonel  Tolcs,  Lieutenant  Wm.  Greenshields. 
Ormond  Union.— Captain  Ralph  Smith. 

Ossory  True  Blues.— July  1st.  1779:  scarlet,  edged  blue.    Colonel  Ed- 
ward Flood;  Major  Robert  Palmer. 
Owzle  Galley  Corps.— Captain  Theo  Thompson. 

Parsonstown  Loyal  Independonts.— Feb.  loth  1776;  scarlet,  faced  black, 
silver  lace.  Colonel  Sir  William  Parsons.  Bart:  Major  L.  Parsons, 
Captam  B.  B.  Warburton;  Lieutenant  Edward  Tracy. 


VOLUNTEERS. 


393 


Passage  Union  Volunteers. 

PoitaiiingloQ  Infantry.  — September  18tb,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  yellow. 

silver  lace.    Major-Commandant  W.  II.  Legraud;   Captain  James 

Slannus.    Captain  Ilcnry  Carey;  Ensign  Annesiy  Carey, 
r.aforcl  Brigade  (Light  Cavalry).— Dec.  2Glli,  1779;  scarlet,  edged  blue, 

gold  lace.    Colonel  Denis  Daly, 
llakenny  Volunteers. — Colonel  Tlieopbilus  Clements, 
llalplisdale  Light  Dragoons. — Scarlet,  faced  yellow.    Captain  Jobn 

Tandy. 

Ramellon  Volunteers. — Captain  James  Watt. 

llaphoe  Battalion. — July  1st,  1778;  scarlet,  faced  blue.  Lieutenant- 
Colonel- Nisbitt. 
Rathdown  Carbineers. — Maj.  Edwards. 

lljithdovvn  Light  Dragoons  (Co.  Dublin). — June,  1779;  scarlet,  faced 

black.    Colonel  Sir  John  Allen  Johnson,  Bart. 
Rathdovvny  Volunteers. — Feb.  177G;  scarlet,  faced  white.    Colonel  J. 

Palmer. 

Rathangan  Union. — August  2d.  1783;  scarlet,  faced  white.  Captain 

AVilliam  Montgomery. 
Rockingham  Volunteers, — September  7th,  1779:  blue,  faced  blue,  edged 

scarlet,  yellow  buttons.    Colonel  Nixon;  Major  Chamney. 
Rosanallia  Volunteers. — July  1st,  1774;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  silver  lace. 

Colonel  Richard  Croasdale;  Major  George  Sandes;  CaptamL.  Sandes; 

Captain  J.  Sabatier;  Captain  A.  Johnson;  Lieul.  William  Tracey. 
Roscrea  Blues. — July  21st,  1779:  blue,  faced  blue,  gold  lace.  Colonel 

L.  Parsons. 

Roscommon  Independent  Forresters. — May  Ist,  1779;  scarlet,  faced 
green.  Colonel  R,  Waller;  Lieutenant  Colonel  Thomas  M'Dermott; 
Major  Edward  Dowling. 

Ross  Union  Rangers. — xVugust  1st,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  green.  Colonel 
Drake. 

Ross  Volunteer  Guards.— September  20th,  1779;  scarlet  faced  black. 
Captain-Lieut.  H.  T.  Houghton. 

Roxborough  Volunteers.— 1777;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  silver  epaulets. 
Colonel  William  Perse. 

Royal  1st  Redment  (Co  Antrim).-Scarlet,  faced  blue,  gold  lace.  Ma- 
jor A.  M'Manns. 

Saintfield  Light  Tnfantry.--Captain  Nicholas  Price. 

Skreen  Corps. — Lord  Kideen. 

Skreen  Corps  of  Dragoons.  ^Colonel  John  Dillion;  Captam  James 
Cheony. 

Slane  Volunteers. — Lieutenant  John  Forbes. 
Slievardagh  Light  Dragoons. 


IlIELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


Sligo  Loyal  Volunteers.— M-.iy  24:th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  white,  Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel Ornisby. 

Society  Volunteers  of  Derry. — March  17th,  1782;  scarlet,  faced  blue. 
Capiian  William  Moor, 

Straban  Battalion — Lieutenant-Colonel  Charleton. 

Stradbaliy  Volunteers. — October  12th,  1770;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  silver 

lace.    Colonel  Thomas  Cosby. 
Strokestowu  Light  Horse. — November,  1779;  scarlet  faced  jellow. 

Major  Gilbert  Conry. 
Talbotstown  Invincibles. — December,  1780;  scarlet,  faced  deep  green. 

Colonel  Nicholas  Westb}';  Major  John  Smith;  Lieutenant  F.  W. 

Greene. 

Tallow  Blues  — Captain-Commandant,  George  Bowles. 

Tipperary  Light  Dragoons  and  Infantry'. — Lieutenant-Colonel  Baker. 

Tipperary  Volunteers. — May  1st,  1776;  scarlet,  laced  black,  silver  lace. 

Captain  James  Roe- 
Tralee  Royal  Voluriteers.— Januar}'  7th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  blue,  gold 

lace.    Colonel  Sir  Bany  Denny,  Bart. 
Trim  Infantry.— July  12th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  black.    Captain  W.  H. 

Finlay. 

Trim  and  R  itr)ath  Volunteers. — Colonel  Earl  of  Mornington,  after  Mar- 
quis of  Welleslp}'. 

True  Blue  Legion  (City  of  Cork).— Colonel  the  Right  Hon.  Earl  of 

Shannon;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Morrison. 
True  Blue  and  Society  Volunteers. 

True  Blue  Legion  (Co.  of  Cork). — Colonel  Right  Hon.  E;irl  of  Shannon; 

Lie'iten;mt-Colonel  James  Morrison;  Major  Michael  Westroop. 
True  Blue  Volunteers  (Londonderry). — Capt.   Lieut.  Moore;  Captain 

William  Lecky. 

True  Blue  Battalion  (Co.  Fermanagh).— Colonel  Archdall;  Captain 
Lendrum. 

Tullamore  True  Blue  Rangers.— October  28tl),  1778;  scarlet,  faced  blue, 
silver  lace.    Colonel  Charles  William  Bury. 

Tallow  Rangers.  — Au'JTust  10th,  1773;  scarlet,  faced  black,  white  but- 
tons.   Captain  Vvhelan. 

Tully  Ash  Real  Volunteers.— October  loth.  1783:  scarlet,  faced  black. 

silver  lace.    Colonel  J.   Dawson  Lawrence;  Captain  A.  Dawson 

Lawrence. 
Tj'rawley  Rangers. 
Tyrell  True  Bines. 

Tyrell's  Pass  Volunteers.- 1776;  grey,  faced  scarlet,  silver  lace  Cap- 
tain Hon.  Robert  Moore. 

Tyrone  First  Regiment.— July,  1780:  scarlet,  faced  deep  blue.  Colonel 
James  Stewart;  Lieutenant-Colonel  Charlton. 


VOLUXTKEHS. 


395 


Ulster  Volunteer  True  Blue  Bultalion. — September  od,  1779;  blue,  faced 
scar'.et.    Major  lioberl  Baiden;  Lieuteuaut  George  Taud3^ 

Ulster  (i*'ir.st)  KegMneut.-r-Scarlet,  faced  white.  Colonel  Earl  of  Charle- 
mont;  Lieutcnaut  Coiouels  Sir  W.  S\'nnot,  Right  Hon.  William 
Brownlow,  C  M'Causlaud;  Captain  G.  W.  Molyneux. 

Ulster  (TiiiKl)  Rogiiueiit. — Lieiiteuant  Colouel  William  Ross. 

Ulster  (FouriU)  Regiment. — Scarlet,  faced  blue.    Colonel  R.  M'Clintock. 

Ulster  Reguneni. 

Ulster  Regiment  Artillery. ^Blue,  faced  scarlet.    Captain  Thomas 

Ward.  * 
Union    Regiment    (Moira). — Lieutenant-Colonel    Sharman;  Captain 

Patton. 

Uni(m  Rangers. — Captain  ArthjLir  Dawson. 

Union. Light  Dragoons  (Co.  Meath). — Scarlet,  faced  green,  Captain  G. 
Lucas  Nugent, 

Union  Light  Dragoons  (City  of  Dublin).  —Sept.  12th,  1780;  scarlet  faced 
green.  Capiain-Commandant  R.  Cornwall;  Lieutenant  J.  Talbot 
Asheuburst. 

Uppi-'r  Cross  and  Coolock  Independent  Volunteers. — October,  1779; 

scarlet,  faced  black. 
Water  ford  Volunteer  Companies  (1,  2,  3,  4,  and  5). 
Waterford  City  Royal  Oak  Volunteers. 

Water f Old  Artillery  and  Infantry  (No,  1,  2,  3,  4,  5,  6,  and  7.)— Captain 

Hannibal  William  Dobby. 
Waterford  Light  Battalion.— April  25th,  1779;  scarlet  faced  blue.  Major 

William  Alcocks,  Captain  Robert  Shapland  Carew. 
Waterford  Artiller3^ — Captain  Joshua  Paul. 

Waterford  Infantry. 

Waterford  Union.— November  6th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced  green.  Cap- 
tain Thomas  Christmas. 
Westport  Volunteers. 

We.xford  independent  Light  Dragoons.— Autumn  of  1775;  scarlet,  faced 

royal  blue.    Colonel  John  Beaumau. 
Wexford  Independents. 

Wexford  Independent  Volunteers.— October  4th,  1779;  scarlet,  faced 

black.    Captain  and  Adjutant  Millard  Clifford. 
White  House  Volunteers, 

Wicklow  Forresters.  -  July  1st.  1779;  scarlet,  faced  light  blue.  Colonel 
Samuel  Hayes;  Captain  Thomas  King;  ('aptain  Andrew  Prior. 

Wicklow  Association  Artillery,— Blue,  faced  scarlet.  Thomas  Mont- 
gomery Blair.  Esq, 

Willsborough  Volunteers,— October,  1779,  dark  green,  edged  white. 
Colonel  Thos,  Willis;  Major  Owen  Young. 


• 


39G 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PliESENT. 


Yougbal  Independent  Rangers  — Lieutenant-Colonel  Meade  Ilobson; 

INIajor  John  Swayne. 
Youglial  IiidepLiirlciit  Volunteers, — Captain  Boles. 
Yougbal  Uuiou. — Major  Thomas  Green. 


LIST  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  PLANTERS  IN  MUNSTER 
{According  to  Sir  Ricliard  Cox  and  tJie  Carew  Manuscript). 


CORK.  ACRE3. 

Arthur  Robins   18,000 

Fane  Beecher   12,000 

Hugh  Worth   12,000 

Sir  Arthur  Hyde   5,574 

Arthur  Hyde   11,701) 

Sir  W.  St.  Leger   G.OOO 

Hugh  Cuffe.."   0,000 

Thomas  Fleetwood. 
]\Iarmaduke  Edmunds. 
Sir  John  Stowell. 
Sir  John  Clifton. 

CORK  AND  WATERFORD. 

Sir  Walter  Raleigh   42,000 

WATERFORD. 

Sir  Christopher  Hatton  10,910 

Sir  Edward  Fitton   000 

Sir  R.  Beacon  4,400 

TirPERARY. 

Earl  of  Ormonde   3,000 

Sir  Edward  Fitton. 

LIMERICK. 

Sir  George  Bouchier   12.880 

AVilliam  Trciu^luird   12,000 

Sir  H(Miry  Billiugsley   11,800 

Sir  William  Courtenay   10,500 

Francis  Barkly   7.250 

Ed.  Mainwaring.   3,747 


^  ACKES. 

Sir  Thomas  Norris   0,000 

Thomas  Say   5,775 

Sir  Richard  Beacon   1,000 

Edmund  Spenser   3,028 

Sir  George  Bouchier   1,800 

Sir  Edward  Fiiton   10,002 

Francis  Fitton   3,780 

Aiexll^der  [  •  3.020 

Sir  Edward  Fitton   11.500 

William  Carter   3,001 

Sir  George  Thornton   1,500 

Robert  Annesley   2,599 

Sir  Henry  Uffhtred   2.000 

Robert  Slrowde   10,000 

Robert  (\)llum   2,500 

Rowland  Stanley. 

KERRY. 

Sir  William  Herbert   10.270 

diaries  Herbert   3.708 

S  i  r  Val  c n t i  n e  Brown   0 . 5(i0 

Sir  Edward  Denny   0,000 

John  Hollis.  .  . .  '   4,422 

Captain  Conway   5,200 

John  Champion  )  ^  aoa 

George  Stone     f ^'^^ 

John  Crosbic. 

Captain  Thomas  Spring. 

Stephen  l^ice. 

Luke  Morrice. 


LIST  OF  TRE  ORIGINAL  PLANTERS  IN  ULSTER 

{According  to  the  Carew  Manuscripts). 


ENGLISH. 


ARMAGH. 


ACRES. 


Earl  of  Worcester. 

Lord  Say   3.000 

Powell   2,000 

Sachcverel   2,000 


John  Heron   2,000 

Stanhawe   1,500 

John  Dillon   1.500 

Brownlowe   1.000 

Machett   1.000 

Rolleston   1.000 

10,500 


0 11 IC.  I X  A  L  PL  A  XT  E  i:S . 


397 


TYRONE.  ACRES. 

Earl  of  Salisbury. 

Sir  Thomas  Kidgwnv   2,000 

Thomas  Koch...  .  *   2,000 

Francis  AVil lough bic   2.000 

Sir  John  Ashborneham   2.000 

Captain  and   Thomas  Ed- 
no  v   1,500 

Geor«?e  Kido-way   1,000 

AViiliani  Parsons   1,000 

William  Turvinc   1,000 

12,500 

TYRONE. 

Lord  Audlev   3,000 

Sir  :Mervin  Audley   2,000 

Fernando  Andley   2,000 

Sir  John  Davies   2,000 

William  Blunt   2,000 


11,000 

DONEGAL. 

Lord  Cliambcrlaine. 

William  Wils(m   2,000 

Sir  iS\)rris  Barklcy   2,000 

Sir  Robert  Remington   2,000 

Sir  Thomas  Cornwall   2,000 

Sir  William  Barnes. ;   1,500 

Sir  Henry  Clare'   1,500 

('aptain  Coach   1,500 

Edward  Russell   1,500 

lia  j\Iansfield   1,500 


FERMANAGH. 

Earl  of  Shrewsburie. 
Sir  Ell  ward  Blennerhassett 
Thomas  Blennerhassett. . . . 
Sir  Hugh  Woorall  , 


15,000 


2,000 
2.000 
1,000 

5.000 

, FERMANAGH. 

Earl  of  Shrewsburie. 

Thomas  Flowerden   2,000 

Edward  Ward   1,000 

Henrv  Huninjjs   1.000 

Thomas  Barton    1,000 

John  Ledborough   1.000 

Robert  Calvert   1,000 

Robert  Boggas   1,000 

John  Arclidale   1,000 


9.000 


CAVAN.  ACRES. 

Earl  of  Northampton. 

Richard  Waldron   2,000 

Jolin  Fish   2,000 

Stephen  Butler   2,000 

Sir  Nicholas  Lusher   2,000 

Sir  Hugb  Wirrall   1,500 

John  Taylor   1.500 

W.  Lusher   1.500 

12,500 

Total  81,500  acres. 


SCOTTISH. 

AEMAGH. 

Sir  James  Douglass   2,000 

Claude  Hamilton   1,000 

William  Lander   l.C»0 

James  Oaig   1,000 

Henry  Acheson   1,000 

C.OOO 

TYRONE. 

Lord  Uchiltrie   3,000 

Sir  Robert  Hepburne   1,500 

L.  Lochnories   1,000 

Barnard  LYudsev   1X00 

Robert  Stewart  of  Hilton. .  1,000 

Robert  Lindsey   1.000 

Robert  Stewart  of  Rotton . .  1.000 


9,500 

TYRONE. 

Earl  of  Abcrcorne   3,000 

Sir  Claude  Hamilton   2,000 

James  CI  ape n   2,000 

Sir  Ceorae  Hamilton   1,500 

Sir  Thoniias  Boyd   1.500 

James  llaig   1,500 

Sir  John  Drummond  of  Bord- 

land   1.000 

George  Hamilton   1,000 

13,500 

DONEGAL. 

Duke  of  Lennox   3,000 

LordofMinto   1.000 

John  Stewart   1.000 

Alex.  McAuUa  of  Hurling. .  1,000 


39S 


n^ELA^^D,  PAST  AXD  ^R::sE^'T. 


L.  Glenirirnock  

John  Cuniiigliiiin  of  Ciuu- 

ficld  

Cuthbert  Cuimiugham  

L.  DuiMiulI  

James  Coayngham  


DONEGAL. 

L.  Bomby.  

L.  Brouirliani  

WilH.im  Stewart  

Sir  Patrick  Mcivce  

A 1  e  X  a  n  ( 1  e  I  ■  C '  >  D  y  n  g  b  a  in 

James  McCiillock  

Alexander  Dombar  

Patrick  Waus  


ACRES. 

2,000 
1.000 

i,oOJ 

l.UOO 
1,000 

12.003 

2.000 

1,5:0 

l,o00 
1.000 
1.000 
1.000 
l.OCO 
1,000 

10,000 


SERVITORS. 

ARMAGH. 

Sir  Gerald  Moore  

Sir  Oliver  St.  John  

Ljord  Audley  

Sir  Thomas  Williams. . . . 

Captain  Bourchier  

Captain  Cooke  

Lieutenant  Pomes  

Marniadnke  Wlntchurch. 
Captain  Alherton  


FERMANAGH. 


L.  Biirley  

L.  Pittarre.  

L.  Mountwhany,  jun. 

L.  Kiukell  

James  Traill  

George  Smelhome. . . . 


TYRONE, 

Sir  A.  Chichesier. . ... . 

Sir  Thomas  Hidirway. 
Sir  Richard  Wiu^tield. 

Sir  Toby  Caultield  

Sir  Francis  Roe  


3,000 
1,500 
1,500 

1  000  ^*'Ptain  Samuel  Harrison. 
1^000 


FERMANAGH. 

Sir  John  Davis  

Captain  Samu 
Piers  Mostvn. 


9,000 


FERMANAGH. 


Sir  John  Home   2,000 

R  )bert  Hamilton   1,500 

William  Fowler   1,500 

James  Sibb   1.000 

Jehue  Lyndsey   1.000 

Alexander  Home   1,000 

John  Dombar   1,000 


9,000 


CAVAN. 


Sir  Alexander  Hamilton   2.000 

John  Aiichmootie   1.0(0 

Alexander  Auchmootie. . . .  1,000 

Sir  Claude  Hamilton   1,000 

John  Broune   1,000 


COOO 

CAVAN. 

L.  Obien^'e   3.000 

William  Dowmbar   1.000 

William  Bay  lie   1.000 

Johu  Ralsto'n   1.000 


DONEGAL. 

Captain  Stewart  

Captain  Craffoord  

Captain  John  Yaughan  

Capiain  Kinsmell  

C.iptain  Brookes  

Sir  Riciiai  d  Hansard  

Lieutenant  Parkins  and  En- 

siiin  Hilton  

Sir  Thomas  Chichesier  

Captain  Hart  

Sir  Raffe  Binglie  

Lieutenant  Ellyes  

Captain  Henry  Vnugli;in .. . . 
Captain  Richard  Bingley... 

Lieutenant  Gale  

Charles  Grims<iitch  

Lieutenant  Browne  


Total  81,000  acres. 


6,000 


FERMANAGH. 

Sir  Henry  Folliott  

Captain  Atkinson  

Captain  Coale  

Captain  Goare  *  


ACSE8. 

l.COO 
1.500 
500 
1.000 
1,000 
1,000 
200 
120 
300 


0^020 


1.320 
2,000 
2.000 
1.000 
1.000 

7,320 

1,500 
500 
246 

2.240 

1,00^ 
1,000 
1,000 
1,000 
1.000 
l.COO 

300 
500 
1.000 
1,128 
400 
1.000 
500 
100 
2-10 
400 

11,568 

1.500 
1,000 
1.000 
1,000 

"4.500 


OHlGi:XAL  PL  ANT  EES. 


399 


CAVAN. 

ACRES. 


Sir  George  Grcame  and  Sir 

Richaril  Greanie   2,000 

Capluiii  Coolnie  aud  Walter 

'Jalbot   1,500 

Captain  Piiincr    1,000 

Lieutenant  liiitlidg   300 

SerjcauL  Johues   150 


4,950 

CAVAN. 

Sir  Oliver  Lambnrt   2,000 

Captain  Lyons  and  Joseph 

Jones. .   1,500 

Lieutenant   Atkinson  and 

'  Lieutenant  Russell   1.000 


4,500 


CAVAN. 

ACRES. 


Sir  John  Elliott   400 

Captain  John  Kidgewa^y. . . .  1,0C0 

Sir  William  Taaff. . .  . .'   1,000 

Jjieulenant  Garth   500 

SirEdmoud  Feliplace   1,000 


3,900 

CAVAN. 

Sir  Thomas  Ashe  and  John 
Ashe   750 

Archibald  More  and  Brent 
More   1,500 

Captain  Tirrell   2,000 


4,250 

Total  39,914.. 


LIST  OF  THE  ORIGINAL  PLANTERS  IN  WEXFORD. 
{According  to  tlie  Carew  Manuscripts.) 

ACRES. 

Sir  Richard  Cooke   1,500 

Sir  Lawrence  Esmond   1,500 

Sir  Edward  Fisher   1,500 

Francis  Blunden   1,000 

Conway  Brady   GOO 

Sir  Roger  Jones    1,000 

Sir  James  Carroll   1,000 

John  Wingfield   1.000 

Sir  Adam  Loftus   1,000 

Fergus  Graemes   300 

Sir  Richard  Wiufield   1,000 

W^illiam  ^Lirwood   1,000 

Francis  Blondell   1.500 

John  Leghorn                                                  ...  1,000 

Captain  Trcvillian  •   2,000 

Captain  Fortcscue   2,000 

Thomas  Ilibbets   1 

The  Bishop  of  Waterford   1-^^00 


Total 


20,900  acres. 


400 


IRELAND.  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


The  folloiving  also  received  gitinfs  amounting  to- 
gether to  12,000  acres. 


Captain  Dorrington. 
Meares. 
Pikeman. 
dwell. 
Ackland. 
Henry  Fisber. 
Lieutenant  John  Fisher. 


Lieutenant  Burroughs. 

St  r.a  ford. 
Mr.  GiUet. 
Waldroud, 
Sherlock. 
HashwelL 


LIST  OF  ENGLISH  AND  lEISn  PEERAGES  AND  STEPS  IN  THE  IKISn 
PEERAGE  CONFERRED  IX  A.  D.  ISOO,  IN  CONSIDERATION  OF  A 
SUPPORT  OF  THE  UNION  BILL. 

I.  CREATIONS. 

IRISH  PLEKAGES. 

Earl  of  Montrath  to  be  Baron  of  Castlecooie  with  remainder  *o  Mr. 

Charles  Cootc,  M.  P.  for  Maryborough. 
Lord  Langford  (the  Hon.  William  Clotworihy  Rowley). 
De  Blaquiere  (the  Right  Hon.  Sir  John  BlaquiereX 
•*    Frankfort  (ihe  Right  Hon.  Lodge  Morris). 
Baroness  DuUerin,  with  remainder  to  her  son  Sir  James  Blackwood. 
Lord  Henniker  (Sir  John  Henniker). 

Baroness  Newcopaen,  wife  of  Sir  W.  Newcomcn,  with  remainder  to  her 

heirs  male. 
Lord  Adare  (Sir  Richard  Quin). 

Ventry  (Sir  Thomas  Mullins). 
'•    Ennismore  (William  Hare,  Esq  ). 

Wallscourt  (John  Henry  Blake;  Esq). 
"    MountsanforJ  (Henry  Moore  Sanford). 

Donalley  (Henry  Priltie,  Esq.). 
**   Tara  (John  Preston,  Esq.). 
"    Hartland  (Maurice  Mahon.  Esq.). 
"    Cianmorris  (John  Bingham.  Esq.). 
"    Lecale  (Right  Hon.  Lord  Charles  Fitzger^ild). 
*'    Xorbury  (John  Toler,  Attorney-General). 
*'    Ashtown  (Frederick  Trench,  Esq.), 
''    Clarina  (Eyre  Massey,  Esq.). 
"    Erris  (Hon.  Robert  King). 
Eirl  of  Clanricarde  to  be  Earl  of  Clanricarde  with  remainder  to  his 
daughters  and  to  their  heirs  male. 


CHIEF  GOVERJ^OPtS  OF  IRELAND. 


401 


ENGLISH  PEERAGES. 

Earl  of  Clare  to  be  Lord  Fitzgibbon. 
Marquis  of  Drogheda  to  be  Lord  Moore. 

Ely  "      "  Loftus. 

Earl  of  Ormonde         '*       "  Butler. 

Carysfort  "  Carysfort. 

Marquis  of  Thomond    "      "  Thomond. 

IL  PROMOTIONS  IN  THE  IRISH  PEERAGE. 

Earl  of  Inchiquin  to  be  Marquis  of  Thomond. 
"   Bective  "         "  Headfort. 

"   Altamount       *•         *'  Sligo. 
"Ely  "         **  Ely. 

Viscount  Castlestewart  to  be  Earl  of  Castlestewart. 
Bandon         '*  Bandon. 
**      Donoghmore  **         '*  Donoghmore. 

Caledon         "         *'  Caledon. 
**      Kenmare       **         '*  Kenmare. 
O'Neil  "         "  O'Neil. 

Lord  Glentworth  to  be  Viscount  Limerick. 
"    Somerton      "         "  Somerton. 
Yelverton      "         '*  Avonmore. 
Longueville,  **         **  Longueville. 
Bantry  *^         **  Bantry. 

Monck  "         "  Monck. 

Kilconnell     "  Dunlo. 
Tullamore     "         *'  Charleville. 
Kilwarden     "         "  Kilwarden. 


LIST  OF  THE  CHIEF  GOVERNORS  OF  IRELAND  FROM  1173  TO 

A.  D.  1883. 

HENRY  II. 

1173.  Hugh  de  Lacy,  Earl  of  Meath,  Lord- Justice. 

Richard  de  Clare,  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Lord- Justice. 
1177.  Raymond  le  Gros,  Lord-Deputy. 

John,  Earl  of  Morton,  Lord  of  Ireland. 

William  Fitzaldelm,  Lord-Justice. 
1179.  Hubert  de  Burgh,  Earl  of  Meath,  Lord-Deputy. 
1181.  Jolin  de  Laf-y,  )  ^     j  t 

Richard  de  Pc  cho,     \  Lords- Justices, 

William  Filzaldclm,  Lord-Deputy. 


40:3 


IKELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PRESEXT. 


1184.  PLilip  .de  B?aosa.  Lord  Deputy. 

1135.  John,  Earl  of  Mortou,  Lord  of  Ireland. 

John  de  Courcy,  Earl  of  Ulster,  Lord-Deputy. 

RICHARD  I.,  1189. 

1189.  Hugh  de  Lacy,  the  younger,  Lord  of  Meath,  Lord-Justice. 
1191.  William  Le  Peiit,  Lord  Justice. 

William  Earl  of  Pembroke,  Earl  Marshal,  Lord-Justice, 

Peter  Pipard.  Lord-Justice. 
1194.  Ilamo  de  Valois,  Lord-Justice. 

JOHN,  1199. 

1199.  Meiler  FitzHenry,  Lord-Justice. 

1203.  Hugh  de  Lacy,  the  younger  Lord-Deputy. 

l"20o.  Meiler  FitzHeory,  Lord-Justice. 

1208.  Hugh  de  Lacy.  Earl  of  Ulster,  Lord-Deputy. 

1210.  King  John  in  person.  Lord  of  Ireland, 

William,  E:irl  of  Pembroke,  Lord  Deputy. 

John  de  Grey  (Bishop  of  Norwich),  Lord-Justice. 
1213.  Henry  de  Londres,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Lord-Justice, 
1215.  Geoffrey  de  Marisco  (Mountmorres),  Lord-Justice. 

HEXRY  III.,  1216. 

1219.  Henry  de  Londres,  Lord-Justice. 

1224.  William.  Earl  of  Pembroke,  the  younger,  Lord-Justice, 

1226.  Geoffrey  de  Marisco.  Lord-Justice. 

1227.  Hubert  do  Burgh,  Earl  of  Kent,  Lord-Justice. 
Richard  de  Burgh,  Lord  of  Connaught,  Lord-Deputy. 

1229.  Maurice  Fitzgerald,  Lord-Justice. 

1230.  Geoffrey  de  Marisco,  Lord- Deputy. 
1232.  Mam-ice  Fitzgerald,  Lord  Justice. 
1245,  Sir  John  de  Marisco,  Lord  Deputy. 

1247.  Theobald  Walter,  Lord  of  Carrick,  }  j  orr?;u.Tn«;tinp. 
John  de  Cogan.  f  Lords-^Justicea. 

1248.  Sir  John  de  Marisco,  Lord  Justice. 

1252.  Prince  Edward  Plantagenet,  Lord-Justice. 
1255.  Alan  de  la  Zouche,  Lord-Justice. 

1259.  Stephen  Longe-p?e.  Lord-Justice. 

1260.  William  Dene,  Lord-Justice. 

1261.  Sir  Richard  de  Rupella  fRoche).  Lord-Justice. 

1266.  Sir  .John  De  !>[arisco.  Lord-Justice, 

1267.  Sir  David  de  Barry,  Lord-Justice. 

1268.  Sir  Robert  de  Ufford,  Lord-Justice. 

1269.  Richard  de  Exeter,  Lord-Justice. 


CHIKF  GOVERXORS  OF  IRELAND. 


403 


1270.  Sir  James  Audley,  Lord-Justice. 

1272.  3Iaurice  Fitzmaurice  Fitzgerald,  Lord-Justice. 

EDWARD,  1272 

1273.  Sir  Geoffrey  de  Genevill  Lord-Justice.  .  . 
1276.  Sir  Robert  de  Ufford,  Lord-Justice. 

1277-  Stepliea  do  Fulburn,  Bishop  of  Waterford,  Lord-Deputy. 

1280.  Sir  Robert  de  Ufford  Lord-Justice. 

12S2.  John  de  Saunford,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Lord-Justice. 

1287.  Stephen  de  Fulburn  Lord-Justice. 

1290.  William  de  Vesci,  Lord-Justice. 

1293.  William  de  la  Ilaye,  Lord-Justice. 

1294.  William  de  Odinselc,  Lord  Justice. 

1295.  Thomas  Fitzmaurice  Fitzgerald,  Lord-Justice. 
Sir  John  Wogan,  Lord-Justice. 

1302.  Sir  Maurice  Rochfort,  Lord-Deputy. 
Sir  John  Wogan,  Lord  Justice. 

EDWARD  IL,  1307. 

1308.  Sir  Piers  Gaveston,  Earl  of  Cornwall,  Lord-Deputy. 
Sir  William  Bourke,  Lord-Deputy. 

1309.  Sir  John  Wogan,  Lord-Justice. 
1312.  Sir  Edmund  Butler,  Lord-Deputy. 

1314.  Sir  Theobald  de  Vardon,  Lord-Deputy. 

1315.  Sir  Edmund  Butler.  Lord  Deputy. 

1317.  Sir  Roger  Mortimer.  Earl  of  Mach,  Lord-Justice. 

1318.  William  FitzJohn,  Archbishop  of  Cashel,  Lord-Deputy. 
Alexander  Bicknor,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Lord-Deputy. 

1319.  Sir  Roger  Martimer,  Lord-Justice. 

1320.  Thomas  FitzJohn  Fitzgerald,  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord-Deputy. 

1321.  Sir  John  de  Birmingham.  Earl  of  Louth,  Lord-Justice, 

1322.  Ralph  de  Gorges,  Lord-Deputy. 
Sir  John  Darcy.  Lord-Deputy. 

1323.  Sir  Tlumias  Burke,  Lord  Deputy. 

1324.  Sir  John  Darcy,  Lord-Justice. 

1326.  Thomas.  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord  Justice. 

EDWARD  IIL.  1327. 

1328.  Roger  Oiitlawe,  Lord  Chancellor,  Lord-Justice. 
Sir  John  Darcy.  Lord-Justice. 

1329.  James  Butler,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord  Lieutenant 

1330.  Roger  Outlawe.  Lord-Deputy. 

1331.  Sir  Anthony  Lucy,  Lord-Lieutenant. 


4:)4 


IKELAXD.  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


133"3.  Sir  John  Darcy,  Lord-Justice, 

1833.  Sir  Thomas  de  Burgh,  Lord-Deputy. 

1334,  Sir  John  Darcy,  Lord  Justice. 
1337.  Sir  John  Charlton,  Lord  Justice. 

1335.  Thomas  Charlton,  Archbishop  of  Hereford,  Lord-Deputy. 

1340.  Roger  Outlawe,  Lord  Justice. 
Sir  John  Darcy,  Lord-Justice. 

1341.  Sir  John  Morice,  Lord-Deputy. 
1344.  Sir  Ralph  Ufford,  Lord-Deputy. 

1346.  Sir  Roger  Darcy,  Lord-Justice. 

Sir  Walter  Bermingham,  Lord-Justice. 

1347.  John  leArcher,  Prior  of  Kilraainham,  Lord-Depuiy. 

1348.  Sir  "Walter  Bermingham  Lord  Justice. 


1351.  Maurice  de  Rochfort,  Bishop  of  Limerick,  Lord  Deputy. 

1353.  Sir  Thomas  Rokeby,  Lord -Justice, 

1354.  Maurice  FitzThomas  Fitzgerald,  Earl  of  Desmond,  Lord-Justice^ 

1356.  Sir  Thomas  Rokeby,  Lord-Justice. 

1357.  Sir  Almeric  de  St.  Amand,  Lord-Justice. 

1359.  James  Butler,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Justice. 

1360.  Maurice  FitzThomas  Fitzgerald,  Earl  of  Kildarc,  Lord-Deputy. 
James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord  Justice. 

1361.  Lionel,  Duke  of  Clarence,  Earl  of  Ulster,  Lord  of  Connaught, 
Lord  Lieutenant  (till  1369). 

1364.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord  Deputy. 

1365.  Sir  Thomas  Dale,  Lord  Deputy. 

1367.  Gerald  Fitzmaurice,  Earl  of  Desmond.  Lord  Justice. 
1369.  Sir  William  de  Windsor.  Lord  Lieutenant. 

1371.  Maurice.  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord  Deputy. 

1372.  Sir  Robert  Asbeton,  Lord-Justice. 
Ralph  Cheney,  Lord-Deputy. 

Willi.im  Tany,  Prior  of  Kilmainbam,  Lord-Justice. 

1374.  Sir  William  de  Windsor,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1375.  Maurice.  Enrl  of  Kildare.  Lord-Deputy. 

1376.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde.  Lord-Justice. 


1378.  Alexander  Balscot.  Bishop  of  Ossory,  Lord-Justice. 

1379.  John  de  Bromwich.  Lord-Justice. 

1380.  Edmund  Mortimer.  Earl  of  March  and  Ulster,  Lord-Lieutenant 
(till  1383). 

1381.  John  Colton.  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  Lord  Justice. 
1383.  Philip  de  Courtenay,  Lord  Lieutenant  (till  1385). 


Lords-Justice. 


RICHARD  XL,  1377. 


CHIEF  GOTEPwXORS  OF  IRELAND.  405 
13S4.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Deputy. 

1385.  Robert  de  Yere,  Earl  of  Oxford,  Marquis  of  Dublin,  and  Duke  of 
Ireland,  Lord-Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over;  attained  1388.) 
Sir  John  Stanley,  Lord-Deputy. 

1388.  Sir  Philip  de  Courtenay,  Lord-Lieutenant  (till  1389). 
1387.  Alexander  Balscot,  Bishop  of  Meat}. ,  Lord- Justice. 

1389.  Sir  John  Stanley,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Richard  White,  Prior  of  Kilmaihham,  Lord-Deputy. 

1391.  Alexander  Balscot,  Bishop  of  Meath,  Lord-Justice. 

1392.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Justice. 

1393.  Thomas  of  Woodstock,  Duke  of  Gloucester,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
(Xever  came  over.) 

The  King  in  person,  Lord  of  Ireland. 

1394.  Sir  Thomas  le  Scrope,  Lord-Deputy. 

1395.  Roger  Mortimer,  Earl  of  March  and  Ulster,  Lord-Lieutenant 

1398.  Roger  Gray.  Lord -Just  ice. 

Thomas  de  HoUand,  Earl  of  Kent,  Lord  Lieutenant. 

1399.  The  King  in  person,  Lord  of  Ireland. 

HENRY  IV.,  1399. 

1399.  Alexander  Balscot,  Lord  Justice. 

Sir  John  Stanley,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
1401.  Thomas  de  Lancaster.  Lord-Lieutenant  (till  1413). 

Sir  Stephen  Scrope,  Lord-Deputy. 

1405.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Justice. 
Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord-Justice. 

1406.  Sir  Stephen  Scrope,  Lord-Deputy. 

1407.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Deputy. 

1409.  William  de  Botiller,  Prior  of  Kilmainham,  Lord-Deputy. 

HENRY  v.,  1413. 

1413.  Sir  John  Stanley,  Lord  Lieuteunnt. 

1414.  Thomas  Cranley,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Lord-Justice. 
Sir  John  Talbot,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1419.  Richard  Talbot,  Archbishop  (-f  Dublin,  Lord-Deputy. 

1420.  James,  Earl  ot  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

HENRY  VI.,  1422. 

1423.  Edmond  Mortimer,  Earl  of  March  and  Ulster,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Ed.  Dantsey,  Bishop  of  ^leath,  Lord  Deputy. 

Lord  Talbot,  Lord-Lieuteuant. 
1434  James.  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
142C.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde.  Lord  Justice. 


40G 


II^ELAXD,  TAST  AND  PRETEXT. 


1427.  Sir  John  de  Grey,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1428.  Sir  John  Sutton,  Lord  Dudley,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1429.  Sir  Thomas  Scrope,  Lord-Deputy. 

1430.  Richard  Talbot,  Archbisht.p  of  Dublin,  Lord-Deputy. 

1431.  Sir  Thomas  Stanley,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1433.  Sir  Christopher  Plunket,  Lord-Deputy. 

1435.  Sir  Thomas  Stanley,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1436.  Richard  Talbot,  Lord-Deput}-. 

1438.  Lord- Welles,  Lord-Lieutenant.    (Xever  came  over.) 
1  i  iO.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde.  Lord-Deputy. 
1  U2.  William  W^clles,  Lord  Deputy. 
1413.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
1415.  Richard  Talbot,  Lord  Deputy  (till  1449.) 
1446.  John  Talbot,  Earl  of  Shrews'bury.  Lord-Lieutenant. 
-449.  Richard  Plantagcnet,  Duke  of  York,  Earl  of  March  and  Lister, 
Lord-Lieutenant. 

Richard  Nugent,  Lord  Delvin,  Lord-Deputy. 
1450.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Deput}'. 

1452.  Sir  Edward  Fiiz-Eustace,  Lord-Depuly. 

1453.  James,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
John  Mey,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  Lord-Deputy. 

145^.  Sir  Edward  Fitz-Eustace,  Lord  Deputy. 

1459.  Richard  Plantageiiet.  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1460.  Thomas  Earl  of  Kildarc.  Lord-Deputy. 

EDWARD  IV..  14G1. 

1461.  Thomas,  Earl  of  Kildarc,  Lord-Ju'^tiro. 
George,  Duke  of  Clarence.  Lord-Lieutc  nnnt. 

1462.  Roland  Fitz-Eu>tace.  Lord-Deputy. 

William  Sherwood,  Bisiiop  of  Meath,  Lord-Deputy. 
1483.  Thomas,  Earl  of  Desmond,  Lord-Deputy. 
I4G7.  John  Tiptoft,  Earl  of  Worcester,  Lcrd-Dcputy. 
146S.  Thomas,  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord-Deputy. 
1475.  William  Sherwood,  Bishop  of  Meath.  Lord  D(  v."ity. 
1478.  Richard  of  Shrewsbury,  Duke  of  York  (second  son  to  the  King), 

Lord  Lieutenant  (till  1783;  he  never  came  over). 

Bir  Robert  Preston.  Lord  Gorman ston.  Lord  Deputy. 

Gerald,  eighth  Earl  of  Kildarc,  Lorct-Depuly  (till  1492). 

RICHARD  v..  1483. 
RICHARD  IIL,  1483. 

1480.  Edward.  Prince  of  Wales,  Lord  Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over.) 

1434.  John  de  la  Pole,  Earl  of  Lincoln,  Lord-Lieutenant. 


CHIEF  GOYEKXOES  OF  IKELAXD. 


407 


HENRY  VII.,  1485. 

1485,  Jasper  Tudor,  Earl  of  Pembroke  and  Duke  of  Bedford,  Lord- 
Lieutenant. 

1492.  Walter  FitzSimon,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  Lord-Deputy. 

1493.  Lord  Gormanstown,  Lord-Deputy. 
William  Preston,  Lord-Deputy. 

1494.  Henry,  Duke  of  York  (second  son  to  the  King),  Lord-Lieutenant. 
(He  never  came  over.) 

Sir  Edward  Poynings,  Lord  Deputy. 

1495.  Henry  Deane,  Bishop  of  Rangor,  Lord-Justice. 

1496.  Gerald,  eighth  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord-Deputy  (till  1513). 


HENRY  VIIL,  1509. 

1513.  Gerald,  ninth  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord  Justice. 

Gerald,  ninth  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord-Deputy  (till  1520). 
1515.  Lord  Gormanston,  Lord-Justice. 

1520.  Thomas  Howard,  Earl  of  Surrey,  Lord  Lieutenant. 

1521.  Sir  Piers  Butler,  Earl  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Deputy. 
1524.  Gerald,  Earl  of  Kildare,  Lord-Deputy. 

152G.  Lord  Delvin,  Lord-Deputy. 

1528.  Sir  Piers  Butler,  Earl  of  Ossory,  Lord-Justice. 

1529.  Henry  Fitzroy,  Duke  of  Richmond  (natural  son  to  the  King), 
Lord  Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over.) 

1530.  Sir  Wilh'am  Skeffington,  Lord-Deputy. 
1532.  Gerald.  Earl  of  Kildare  Lord-Deputy. 
1535.  Lord  Leonard  Gray,  Lord-Deputy. 
1540.  Sir  William  Brereton.  Lord-Justice. 

Sir  Anthony  St.  Leger,  Lord-Deputy  (till  1546). 
1543  Sir  William  Brabazon,  Lord-Justice. 
1546  Sir  William  Brabazon,  Lord-Deputy. 

Sir  Anthony  St.  Leger,  Lord-Deputy. 


EDWARD  VI..  1547. 


1547.  Sir  William  Brabazon,  Lord- Justice. 

1548.  Sir  Edward  Bellingham.  Lord-Justice. 

1549.  Sir  Francis  Bryan  ) 

Sir  William  Bfabazon.  \  Lords- Justices. 

1550.  Sir  Anthony  St.  Leger,  Lord-Deputy. 

1551.  Sir  James  Croft,  Lord-.Tustice. 

1552.  Sir  .Lames  Cusacke.  Lord-Cbancollor  )  r    ^   t  • 
Sir  Gerald  Aylmer,  Lord-Chief -Justice.  K.  B..  f  Lords- Justices. 


4U8 


IKELA^'Dj  PAST  AND  PRESE^^T. 


MARY,  1553. 

1553.  Sir  Anthony  St.  Leger,  Lord-Deputy. 

1556.  Thomas  Radcliffe,  Lord  Fitzwalter,  Lord-Deputy  (till  1560). 

1557.  Hugh  Curwen,        j.  Lords  Tustices 
Sir  Henry  Sidney,  \  ^^oras-Justices. 

1558.  Sir  Henry  Sidney,  Lord-Justice. 

ELIZABETH,  1558. 

1560.  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  Lord-Deputy. 

Thomas  Radcliffe.  Lord  Fitzwalter,  Earl  of  Sussex,  Lord-Deputy. 

1561.  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  Lord-Deputy. 
Earl  of  Sussex,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  Lord-Deputy. 

1564.  Sir  Nicholas  Arnold,  Lord-Justice. 

1565.  Sir  Henry  Sidney,  Lord  Deputy. 

1567.  Robert  Weston  Lord-Chancellor.  )  Lords-Justices. 
Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  ) 

1568.  Sir  Henry  Sidney,  Lord-Deputy. 
1571.  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  Lord-Justice. 
1575.  Sir  Henry  Sidney.  Lord-Deputy. 

1578.  Sir  William  Drury,  Lord  Justice. 

1579.  Sir  Williim  Pelham,  Lord-Justice. 

1580.  Lord  Grey  de  Wilton,  Lord-Deputy. 

1582.  Adam  Loftus,  ArchbishoiD  of  Dublin  and  Lord- ) 

Chancel  1  or,  [■  Lords- JusticeSc 

Sir  Heuiy  Wallop.  ) 

1584.  Sir  John  Perrot,  Lord-Deputy. 

1588.  Sir  William  Fitzwilliam,  Lord-Deputy. 

1594.  Sir  William  Russell.  Lord-Deputy. 

1597.  Lord  Burgh,  Lord-Deputy. 

Sir  Thomas  Norris,  Lord-Justice. 

1598.  Adam  Loftus,  ) 

Sir  Robert  Gardiner.  C.  J.  K.  B.,  V  Lords- Justices. 
Earl  of  Ormonde,  ) 

1599.  Robert  Devereux.  Earl  of  Essex.  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Adam  Loftus.         )  Lords-Justices. 
Sir  George  Carew,  ) 

1600.  Sir  Charles  Blount.  Lord  Mountjoy,  Lord-Deputy. 

JAMES  L,  1603. 

1603.  Lord -Mount joy,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
Sir  George  Carew^  Lord-Deputy. 

1604.  Sir  Arthur  Chichepter.  Lord-Deputy  (till  1616). 

1613.  Sir  Richard  Wingfield.         ^  ^  , I  Lords-Justices. 
Thomas  Jones,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  ) 


CniEF  GOVEKXORS  OF  IKELAT^D. 


1G15.  Arclibishop  Jones,     )  Lords-Justices. 
Sir  Jobu  Denham,  ) 

16ie.  Sir  Oliver  St.  John  (Lord  Grandison),  Lord-Deputy. 

1623.  Lord  Falkland,  Lord-Deputy  (till  1629). 

1623.  Sir  Adam  Loftus, Viscount  Ely,  Lord  Chancellor,  }  j    a   t  r 

Sir  Richard  Wingfield,  Viscount  Powerscourt,    j  i^oras- justices. 

CHARLES  L,  1625. 

1629.  Sir  Adam  Loftus,  Viscount  Ely,   )  j  ^^j^  t„^^'^„ 
Richard  Boyle,  Earl  of  Cork,       [  Lords- Justices, 

1632.  Sir  Thomas  Went  worth,  Lord  Deputy  (till  1641). 

1636.  Sir  Adam  Loftus,  Viscount  Ely,   )  ^     i„  t 

Christopher  Wandesford.  f  Lords- Justices. 

1639.  Lord  Dillon,  )  t^.^oT 
Christopher  Wandesford,  [  Lords-Justices. 

1640.  Sir  Thomas  Wentworth,  Earl  of  Stratford,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
Sir  Christopher  Wandesford,  Lord-Deputy. 

1639.   Lord  Dilion  )  j        ^  ^. 

Sir  William  Parsons,        f  ^""'^^'^ 

Robert,  Earl  of  Leicester,  Lord-Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over.) 

Sir  William  Parsons,   )  t  r^^Ar,  t 

Sir  John  Borlase,        \  Lords-Justices. 

1643.  Sir  John  Borlase,        J  y    ^  t 

Sir  Henry  Tichborne,  f  Lords- Justices. 

1644.  James  Butler,  Marquis  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1647.  Philip  Sidney,  Lord  Lisle,  Lord -Lieutenant  (appointed  bj  the 
Parliament.). 

THE  REPUBLIC,  1649. 

1649.  Oliver  Cromwell,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1650.  General  Henry  Ireton,  Lord-Deputy.. 

1651.  General  Lambert  Lord-Deputy. 

1653.  General  Charles  Fleetwood,  ^ 
General  Edmund  Ludlow  '  | 

General  Miles  Corbet,  y  Commissioners. 

John  Jones.  i 
John  Weever,  J 

THE  PROTECTORATE,  1553. 

1654.  General  Charles  Fleetwood,  Lord-Deputy. 

1655.  Henry  Cromwell, 
Matthew  Tomlinson, 
Miles  Corbet, 
Robert  Goodwin, 
William  Steel. 

1657.  Henry  Cromwell,  Lord-Lieutenant. 


410 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


1Gj9.  Edmund  Ludlow,  "j 

John  Jones,  | 

Miiuhew  Tomlinson,  ^- CommissioQers. 

Miles  Corbet,  j 

3Iajor  Bury,  J 

CHARLES  IL,  1660. 

1660.  George  Monck,  Duke  of  Albemarle,  Lord-Lieutenant.  (Never 
came  over.) 

John,  Lord  Robarts,  Lord-Deputy.    (Never  came  over.) 
Sir  Maurice  Eustace,  ) 
Sir  Cliarles  Coote,  Earl  of  Montrath,  !■  Lords-Justices. 
Roger  Boyle,  Earl  of  Unci y,  ) 

1661.  Sir  ]Maurice  Eustace  )  t    j    t    *•  « 
Roger  Boyle,  Earl  of  Orrery,     \  Lords- Justices. 

1662.  James  Butler  Duke  of  Ormoude,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
16(54.  Thomas  Butler,  Earl  of  Ossory,  Lord-Deputy. 

1669.  John,  Lord  Robarts,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1670.  John,  Lord  Berkeley,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1671.  Michael  Bovle  Arcbbishop  of  Dublin,  Kords- Justices  (till  1685). 
Sir  Arthur  Forbes,  ) 

1672.  Arthur  Capel,  Earl  of  Essex,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1677.  James,  Duke  of  Ormonde,  Lord  Lieutenant  (till  1685). 
1682.  Richard  Butler,  Earl  of  Arran,  Lord-Deputy. 

JAMES  II..  1685. 

1685.  Henry  Hydo,  Earl  of  Clarendon,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Richard  Talbot.  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Sir  Alexander  Fitton,  Lord-Chancellor,      )  Lords-Justices. 

William,  Earl  of  Clanricarde,  ) 

1689.  King  James  in  person. 

WILLIAM  III.,  1689. 

1690.  King  William  in  person. 

Henry,  Viscount  Sydney.  )       ,  t 

Sir  Charles  Porter  Lord- Chancellor,      >•  Lords- Justices, 

Thomas  Conin^sby.  ) 
1602.  Henry,  Viscount  Sydney,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
1693.  Henrv  Lord  Capel  '  ) 

Sir  Cyril  Wyche.      V  Lords-Justices. 

W^illiiim  Duncombe.  \ 

oi'  ^^^''^y^r^V'''''    !-  Lords-Justices. 
Sir  Cvril  Wvche.  \ 

160.=;.  Lord  Capel.  Lord  Deputv  (d.  1696). 

1696.  Sir  Charles  Porter.  Lord-Justice. 

Sir  Charles  Porter,  ) 

Earl  of  Montrath,    V  Lords  Justices. 

Earl  of  Drogheda,  j 


CHIEF  GOVERNORS  OF  IRELAND. 


1697.  Earl  of  Gal  way,  Lord -Justice. 
Marquess  of  Winchester,  1 
Earl  of  Gal  way,  >•  Lords- Justices. 

Viscount  Villiers,  ) 

1699.  Duke  of  Bolton,  ) 

Earl  of  Gal  way,  >  Lords- Justices. 

Narcissus  Marsh,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  ) 

Duke  of  Bolton,  ) 

Earl  of  Berkeley,     >•  Lords-Justices. 

Earl  of  Gal  way,  ) 

1701.  Earl  of  Rochester,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1702.  Narcissus  Marsh,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  ) 

Earl  of  Drogheda,  y  Lords- Justices 

Earl  of  Mount  Alexander,  ) 

ANNE.  1702. 

1702.  Earl  of  Mount  Alexander,  ) 

.  General  Earl,  >  Lords-Justices. 

Thomas  Keightley,  ) 

1703.  James,  Duke  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
Sir  Richfird  Cox,  Lord- Chancellor,  ) 

Earl  of  Mount  Alexander,  |-  Lords-Justices. 

General  Earl,  ) 

1705.  Sir  Richard  Cox,  I  Lords-Justices. 

Lord  Cutts  of  Gowran,  ) 

1707.  Narcissus  Marsh,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,     )  y    ^   t  *• 

Sir  Richard  Cox,  f  Lords- Justices. 

Earl  of  Pembroke.  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Narcissus  Marsh,  )  x     i^  T„ot;««« 

Richard  Freeman,  Lord-Chancellor,  }      ^^'"^  ustices. 

1709.  Earl  of  Wharton,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

Richard  Freeman,  Lord-Chancellor,     )  -r        t  *• 
Generallngoldsby ,  \  Lords- J  ustices. 


1710.  James,  Duke  of  Ormonde,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
Narcissus  Marsh,       )  t    j  t 

General  Ingoldsby,    \  ^^^^^-^^ 

1711.  Sir  Constantine  Phipps,  Lord-Chancellor,     )  ^ 

General  Ingoldsby,  [  Lords- Justices. 

1712.  Sir  Constantine  Phipps  ) 

John  Vesey,  Archbishop  of  Tuam,         f  Lords- Justices. 

1713.  Charles  Talbot.  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1714.  Thomas  Lindsay,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

John  Vesey.  Archbishop  of  Tuam,  I  Lords-Justices, 

bir  Constautine  Phipps,  Lord-Chancellor,  ) 

GEORGE  L,  1714. 

1714.  William  King.  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  ) 

John  Vesoy,  Archbishop  of  Tuam,         y  Lords- Justices. 
Earl  of  Kildare,  ( 


412  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

1714.  Earl  of  Sunderland,  Lord-Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over.) 

1715.  Duke  of  Grafton,   )  j  T„of,v«o 
Earl  of  Gahvay,      \  Lords-Justices. 

1716.  Charles  Viscount  Townshend,  Lord-Lieutenant.    (Never  came 
over.) 

Alan  Brodrick,  Lord  Chancellor,  ) 

William  Kmg,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  >•  Lords-Justices  till  1719. 
William  Conolly,  Speaker,  ) 

1717.  Duke  of  Bolton,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1719.  Alan  Brodrick  Viscounty  Midleton,     ?  Lords  Justices. 
William  Connolly,  bpeaker,  ) 

X721.  Duke  of  Grafton,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1722.  William  King,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  ) 

Viscount  Shannon,  >•  Lords-Justices. 

William  Conolly,  Speaker,  ) 

1723.  Viscount  Midleton,  Lord  Chancellor  ^ 

William  King,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  I  Lords- Justices. 

Viscount  bhaunoD,  rj^^^^a 

William  Conolly  j 

1724.  Viscount  Midleton,  ) 

Viscount  Shannon,     [-Lords-Justices.  # 
William  Connolly,  ) 

Lord  Carteret,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1726.  Hugh  Boulter,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

Richarch  West,  Lord-Chancellor,  [■  Lords-Justices. 

William  Conolly,  Speaker,  ) 

GEORGE  II.,  1727. 

1731.  Lionel  Sackville,  Duke  of  Dorset,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1732.  Hugh  Boulter,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

Lord  Wyndbam,  Lord -Chancellor,  V  Lords-Justices. 

Sir  Ralph  Gore,  Speaker,  ) 

1733.  Hugh  Boulter,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

Lord  Wynd ham.  Lord- Chancellor,  [- Lords- Justices 

Henry  Boyle,  Speaker,  )  till  1740. 

1737.  Duke  of  Devonshire,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1740.  Archbishop  Boulter.  ) 

Robert  .Tocelyn,  Lord-Chancellor,    J- Lords  Justices. 
Henry  Boyle.  Speaker,  ) 

1742.  John  Ilondlev,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

Robert  Jocelyn.  Lord-Chancellor,  V  Lords-.Tustices 

Henry  Boyle^  Speaker,  )  tdl  1747. 

1745.  Earl  of  Chesterfield,  Lord  Lieutenant. 

1747.  George  Stone,  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  )  Lords- 

Robert  Jocelyn.  Lord  Newport,  Lord-Chancellor,    ^  Justices 
Henry  Boyle,  Speaker,  )  till  1754. 

Earl  of  Harrington.  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1754.  George  Stone.  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

Lord  Newport.  Lord-Chancellor,  V  Lords- Justices. 

Earl  of  Bessborough,  ) 


CHIEF  GOVERNOKS  OF  IRELAND.  413 


1755.  Marquis  of  Hartington,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1756.  Robert.  Lord  Jocelyn,  Lord-Chancellor, 
Earl  of  Bessborougli,  V  Lords-Justices. 
Earl  of  Kildare,  ) 

1757.  John,  Duke  of  Bedford,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1758.  Geortjc  SloDe,  Arch l»ishop  of  Armagli,  ) 

Henry  Boyle,  Earl  of  8hauuou.  [-Lords-Justices 
John  Ponsonby,  Speaker,  )  till  1765. 

GEORGE  in.  1760. 

1761.  Earl  of  Halifax,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1763.  Earl  of  Northumberland,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1765.  Lord  Weymouth,  Lord-Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over.) 

John,  Lord  Bowes,  Lord-Chancellor,  }  y  ,  Tn«t,Vpq 
John  Ponsonby,  Speaker,  i.oi as- Justices. 

Earl  of  Hertford,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1766.  Lord  Bowes,  Lord-Chancellor,  ) 

Earl  of  Droglieda.  >•  Lords- Justices  till  1767. 

John  Ponsonby,  Speaker,  ) 

Earl  of  Bristol,  Lord  Lieutenant.    (Never  came  over.) 

1767.  George,  Viscount  Townshend,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
1772.  Earl  Harcourt,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1777.  Earl  of  Buckinghamshire,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
1780.  Earl  of  Carlisle,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1783.  Duke  of  Portland,  Lord-Lieutenant. 
Earl  Temple,  Lord- Lieutenant. 

1784.  Duke  of  Rutland,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1787.  Richard  Rutland.  Archbishop  of  Armagh,  ) 

Viscount  Lifford,  Lord  Chancellor,  "  >•  Lords- Justices. 
Rigiit  Honorable  John  Foster,  Speaker,  ) 

Marquis  of  Buckingham,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1789.  Lord  Fitzgibbon.  Lord-Chancellor  )j    ^  j 
Right  Honorable  John  Foster,  Speaker,     ^ ^oras-jusiioes. 

1790.  Earl  of  Westmoreland,  Lord-Lieutenant. 

1794.  Earl  of  Fitzwilliam,  Lord  Lieutenant. 

John  Fitzgibbon,  Earl  of  Clare,  Lord-Chancellor,  {  Lords- 
Right  Honoral)le  Jolm  Foster,  Speaker,  J  Justices. 

1795.  Earl  of  Camden,  Lord  Lieutenant. 

1798.  Marquis  of  Claiiricarde,  Lord  Lieutenant. 

Charles,  Mar(]uoss  Ccrnwallis. 

1801.  Philip.  Earl  of  Hardwick- 

1806.  John,  Duke  of  B(>drord. 

1807.  Charles,  Duke  of  Richmond. 
1813.  Charles,  Earl  Whit  worth. 
1817.  Charles.  Earl  Talbot. 

GEORGE  IV.  1820. 


1821.  Richard,  Marquess  WcUesley. 


414 


lEELAXD,  PAST  A^D  PliESENT, 


1828.  Henry,  Marquess  Anglesey. 

1829.  Hugh,  Duke  of  Northumberland. 

1830.  Henry,  Marquess  Anglesey. 

"VV^ILLIAM  IV.  1830. 

1833.  Marquess  Wellseley. 

1834.  Thomas,  Earl  of  Haddington. 

1835.  Henry,  Marquess  of  Xorraanby. 

VICTOEIA.  1837. 

1839.  Hugh,  Viscount  Elrington,  afterwards  Earl  Fortescue. 
1841.  Thomas  Philip,  Earl  De  Grey. 
1844.  "William,  Lord  Heytcsbury. 

1846.  John  William,  Earl  of  Bessborough,  IG  May,  1847  Died. 

1847.  George  William  Frederick,  Earl  of  Clarendon. 

1852.  Archibald  William,  Earl  of  Eglinton. 

1853.  Edward  Granville,  Earl  of  St.  Germains. 
1855.  George,  Earl  of  Carlisle. 

1858.  Archibald,  Earl  of  Eglinton. 

1859.  George,  Earl  of  Carlisle,  5th  Dec  1864,  Died. 

1864.  John,  Lord  "Wodehouse,  afterwards  Earl  of  Kimberley. 

1866.  James,  Marquess  of  Abercorn. 

1867.  The  Duke  of  Abercorn. 

1868.  Lord  Spencer. 
1871.  Lord  Spencer. 

1873.  Duke  of  Abercorn  again. 

1879.  Duke  of  Marlborough  with  the  notorious  James  Lowther,  Chitf- 
Secretary. 

1880.  Lord  Cowper,  and  W.  E.  Forster,  nicknamed  "Buckshot  "  Forsler 
as  Secretary,  who  was  succeeded  by  Lord  Frederick  Cavendish 
who  was  assassinated  in  the  Phajnix  Park,  Dublin,  in  May,  1882. 

1882.  Earl  Spencer  again  Lord-Lieutenant. 


IKELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PliESENT. 


41o 


CHAPTER  XVITI. 

CHEONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

Embracing  the  Leading  Events  in  the  History  of 
Ireland,  from  the  First  Settlement  of  the  Country 
down  to  1888. 

B.  c. 

2035.  Ireland  colonized  by  a  chief  named  Partbolan  and 
his  followers,  who  are  said  to  be  of  Scythian  origin. 

1727.  A  cliief  named  Nemedins  and  his  four  sons  le.d 
a  thousand  colonists  into  Ireland  from  the  shores 
of  the  Eiixinc  Sea,  and  colonized  the  country,  the 
descendants  of  Partholan  having  perished  by 
plague. 

1560.  About  this  date  the  Fomorians,  who  are  generally 
supposed  to  be  Carthaginian  pirates,  made  inroads 
on  the  country,  but  did  not  succeed  in  establishing 
a  permanent  settlement. 

1470.  About  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  a  tribe 
called  Firboigs,  "whose  origin  is  in  doubt,  look 
possession  of  the  island  and  divided  it  into  five  parts 
or  provinces. 

1400.  Towards  the  close  of  the  fourteenth  century  be- 
fore Christ  the  Tuatha  de  Danains  landed  in  Ire- 
land. They  are  supposed  to  have  come  from 
Greece  They  were  idolaters,  skilled  in  Magic  and 
all  the  superstitions  of  the  East.  They  brought 
with  them  the  Lia-fail,  or  stone  of  destiny.  They 
ruled  Bamha,  as  Ireland  was  then  called,  for 
nearly  two  hundred  years. 


41G  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 

B. 

1234.  The  Milesians,  after  the  death  of  their  chief  Mile- 
eius  in  Spain,  sailed  for  Ireland  under  their  Queen 
Scota,  accompanied  by  her  sons.  They  conquered 
the  Tuatha  de  Danains  and  took  possession  of  the  ^ 
country  Scota  killed  in  a  battle  with  the  enemy. 
Heremon  and  Heber  divide  the  country  between 
them. 

1220.  Death  of  Heremon,  who  was  followed  bv  sixteen 
Ardrighs,  oi*  supreme  raoiiarchs,  until  the  reign  of 
Ollave  Fola. 

918.  Ollave  Fola,  the  wise  king  and  legislator,  ascended 
the  throne;  he  might  be  aptly  styled  the  S<'lomoii 
of  Ireland.  He  was  followed  by  several  rulers  of 
■whose  history  little  authentic  is  known. 

650.  Sedna  II.  ascended  the  throne.  From  Scdna  to  Kim- 
beath  twenty  Ardrighs  ruled  over  Ireland. 

350.  Kinibeath  ascended  the  throne.  He  built  the  palace 
of  Emania  in  Ulster.  Sixteen  Monarchs  ruled  f  mm 
Kimbaeth  to  Aengus  with  an  average  of  thirteen 
years. 

130.  Aengus  III.  ascended  the  throne.  Ireland  was  at 
tliis  tiine  called  In is-f ail,  or  *'Isle  of  Destiny," 
inis-ealga,  the  *' Xoble  Island,"  and  Eire,  after  a 
queen  of  that  name.  It  was  also  called  Ireland, 
after  Ir,  the  son  of  Milesius,  who  was  drowned  in 
a  storm  when  the  Milesians  were  landing.  It  was 
also  known  to  the  Romans  as  Hibernia,  Iris,  and 
Iverna.  Fifteen  monarchs  succeeded  Aengus  up  to 
the  reign  of  Conaire  Mor.  About  this  time  the 
celebrated  Irish  militia  flourished.  The  militia  of 
Leinster  were  called  the  Fiann  Erin;  of  Munster, 
the  Clcui  Degaid\  of  Ulster,  the  Knights  of  the 
Jf?^<rZ^ra;icA;  and  of  Connaught,  the  Clcinna  JSIorna, 
Conaire  Mor  ascended  the  throne  a  few  years  be- 
fore Christ,  the  Saviour  of  the  world,  was  born. 
He  was  succeeded  by  several  monarchs  of  whose 
reicrns  little  is  known.    It  is  said  that  the  monarch 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  417 

who  ruled  at  the  time  of  the  cnicifix'oii  of  our  Saviour 
foretold  his  death,  and  got  into  Buch  a  fit  of  anger 
at  Ins  execution  that  he  burst  a  tumor  and  died. 

A.  D. 

95.  Tuatlial  Tectmar  ascended  the  throne.  In  his  reign 
the  Feis  or  National  Assembly  was  commenced 
at  Tara. 

129.  Felim  II.,  Monarch  of  Ireland.  He  introduced 
theBrehon  Code,  or  Lex  talionis,  of  "  an  eye  lor  an 
eye,  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,"  and  also  tlie  law  of 
Eire^  which  punished  crimes  by  the  imposition  of 
fines  or  bv  death. 

ml 

140.  Cathaire  Mor,  who  founded  Dublin,  ascended  tlie 
throne  of  Ireland.  He  was  succeeded  by  Con  of 
the  Hundred  Battles. 

146.  Conaire  H. ,  the  father  of  Carbry  Riada.  mIio 
subsequently  led  an  Irish  colony  into  Albania,  as- 
cended the  throne.  The  most  celebrated  Irish 
chiefs  of  the  time  were  Eagan,  King  of  Munster, 
Goll,  son  of  Morna,  general  of  Connaught,  and 
Cuall,  father  of  the  celebrated  Finn,  the  chief  of 
the  Fiannof  Leinster. 

224.  Cormac  Ulf;ida  ascended  the  throne  of  Ireland 
His  reign  M  as  one  of  the  brightest  in  the  history 
of  Pascan  Ireland.  He  collected  the  laws  of  the 
country  and  published  a  code  which  existed  until 
the  time  of  the  English  invasion.  He  carried  on 
the  wars  in  Albania  begun  by  his  predecessors. 

268.  Carbre  II.,  succeeded  his  father  Cormac  Ulfada. 
During  his  reign  both  Ossian  the  poet  and  his  son 
Oscar  flourished. 

284.  The  great  battle  of  Gabra  was  fought,  in  which 
Carbre  and  Oscar  were  killed. 

331.  The  palnce  of  Emania  in  Ulster  destroyed  by  the 
men  of  Connnught  in  the  reign  of  Muredai-hll. 

350.  Eocha  XII.  ascended  the  throne  of  Ireland.  Ire- 
land was  distracted  by  internecine  wars  during  hi8 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


A  D. 

reigii,  Avhich  continued  under  his  successors  up  to 
the  reiiXM  of  Laesraire.  Britain  was  at  lliis  lime  a 
Province  of  Rome,  and  with  the  exception  of  Ire- 
land all  the  other  Euroj^ean  countries  were  under 
the  same  despotic  sway.  Eocha  was  succeeded  by 
Cremthara  III.,  who  led  expeditions  to  Albania, 
Britain,  and  Gaul,  He  was  succeeded  by  IS'iall  of 
tiie  Nine  Hostages,  who  ravaged  Britain,  Wales, 
and  Gaul.  He  was  killed  near  the  Loire  in  France 
by  Eocha,  King  of  Leinster.  St.  Patrick  was 
among  the  c:iptives  taken  on  tliis  expedition. 

403  D.ithy  succeeded  to  the  throne.  He  was  the  last 
Monarch  of  Pagan  Ireland.  He  was  killed  by 
lightning  at  the  foot  of  the  Alps,  A.  D.  428. 

428.  Laf'gaire  II.,  son  of  Niall  of  the  Nine  Hostages, 
ascended  the  throne  after  the  death  of  KingDathy. 

431.  Palladius  sent  to  convert  the  Irisli  by  Pope  Celestine 

I.,  but  failing  in  his  mission,  he  retired  to  Albania, 
where  he  died. 

432.  Patricias,  or  Patrick,  the  great  Apostle,  arrived  in 

Ireland  to  convert  the  natives. 

433.  First  baptism  by  St.  Patrick  in  Ireland.  St.  Patrick 

preached  at  Tara. 

444.  Foundation  of  the  see  and  priory  of  Armagh  by 
St.  Patrick. 

448.    Chnstianitv  established. 

450.  Foundation  of  the  abbeys  of  Tnniscathery,  Down- 
patrick,  Saul,  Trim,  Ardngh,  Duleek,  Drum- 
sliallon,  and  Louth  by  St.  Patrick. 

480.    Foundation  of  an  abbey  at  Antrim  by  Dartract,  a 

disciple  ot  St.  Patrick.    Foundation  of  an  abbey 

at  Clogher  by  St,  Aid. 
484.    Foundation  of  the  nunnery  and  abbey  of  Kildare 

by  St.  Bridgid. 
493.    St   Patrick  died  on    the  17th    of  March,  in  the 

abbey  of  Saul,  built  by  himself;  and  was  buried 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTOKY  OF  lllELAND.  419 


A.  D. 

there,  being  about  a  quarter  of  a  mile  from  Down, 
aged  120  years. 

600.  St.  Bridget's  Church  at  Kildare  built.  The  famous 
men  of  the  fifth  century  in  Ireland  were  St.  Albe, 
Dubrach,  Fiach,  Benigne,  Selulius,  Fercdeline,  St. 
Catald,  Kienan,  etc. 

500.    Foundation   of   a  monastery    at   Swords  by  St. 

Columb.  Foundation  of  a  priory  at  Castle  Dermot 
by  St.  Derniot.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Lough 
Deary,  Co.  Donegal  (St  Patrick's  Purgatory),  by 
St.  Dabeoc. 

510.    Foundation  of  tlie  abbey  of  Einly  by  St.  Ailbe. 
521.    St.  Columbkille  born  at  Gartan,  Kimacrennan,  in 
Tyrconnell. 

525.  St.  Brigid  died  at  Kildare,  in  the  7Vth  year  of  her 
age. 

527.    St.  Canice,  patron  of  Kilkenny,  born. 
530.    Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Glendalough  by  St. 
Kevin. 

540.    Foimdation  of  an  abbey  at  Clones  by  St.  Tigernacb. 
Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Roscommon  by  St. 
Col  man. 

544.    Foundation  of  the  abbey  Island  of  All  Saints,  in 
Lough rea,  by  St.  Kieran. 

546.  Foundation  of  abbeys  at  Derry  and  Durrow  by 
St.  Columb.  , 

548.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Clonmacnoise. 

549.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Clonard  by  St.  Kieran, 

550.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Muckamore,  Co.  Antrim. 

bv  St.  Colman,  Foundation  of  the  abbev  of 
Aghmacarte,  by  O'Dempsey.  St.  Tigernach  was* 
baptized  by  Conlath,  Bishop  of  Kildare,  St.  Bridgit. 
being  his  god-mother.  lie  founded  the  Abbey  of 
Clones,  in  the  County  Monahan,  where  he  fixed  Ida 
episcopal  see.  now  united  to  that  of  Cloghcr,  and 
died  in  550.    St.  Munchin  founded  a  Bisl)opric  and 


420 


IEELA:S"D,  past  AXD  PKEtiEXT. 


A.  D. 

built  a  church  in  Limerick,  which  was  destroyed  by 
the  Danes  in  853. 
555.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Drumlane,  Co.  Cavan. 
Foundation  of  tLc  abbey  of  Kells  by  St.  Columb. 
Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Bangor  by  St.  Com- 
gall. 

563.  St.  Odran,  Monk  of  Derry,  died  at  lona,  whither 
he  had  accompanied  St.  Columbkille  from  Ire- 
land. St.  3Iolaise,  founder  of  the  Monastery  of 
Devinish  Island,  died.  St.  Columbkille  preaches 
Christianity  in  the  Western  Isles. 

570.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Ardfert  by  St. 
Brendan.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Innisfallen 
by  St.  Finian  the  Leper.  Foundation  of  the  abbey 
of  Aghadoe  by  St.  Canice. 

572.    St.  Columbanus. 

590.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Drumcliffe  by  St. 
Columb. 

597.    St.  Columbkille  died  at  lona. 

600,  Eminent  persons  who  flourished  in  the  sixth  cen- 
tury in  Ireland  were  St.  Collumbkille,  St.  Finian, 
St.  Tarlah,  St.  Brendan,  St.  Congal,  St.  Kenny,  St. 
Colman,  St.  Bridget,  St.  Ita,  with  several  others. 

615.    St.  Columbanus  died  at  Bobbio  in  Italy. 

620.    Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Kilmacduagh,  Co. 

Galway,  by  St.  Colman. 
630.    Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Li<morc  by  St.  Mochuda. 

Foundation  of  the  priory  at  Fore,  West meath,  by 

St.  Fechin.    The  cathedral  of  Cork  founded  by  St. 

Finbarr. 

632.    St.  ^dan,  first  Bishop  of  Ferns,  died. 
634.    St.  Aidan,  from  lona,  reintroduces  Cliristianity  at 
Lindisfarne.    Irish  missionarips  on  the  Continent. 
630     The   episcopal    church  of   Killaloe  was  founded 


CnRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


421 


AD. 

.'ibout  this  time,  by  tlie  contribution  of  different 
Lings. 

CoG.  St.  Kiecliin,  founder  of  the  Abbey  of  Fore,  etc., 
died 

660.  Foinuhition  of  a  monastery  at  Cong,  Co.  Mayo,  by 
St.  Fechan. . 

665.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Mayo,  by  St  Colraan. 
>45.    Feargal  (Virgilius)  flourished. 

795.  Tlie  Danes  and  Kornians,  known  by  the  name  of 
Easteiling'-:,  cr  Ostraen,  invade  Ireland. 

600.  The  Danes  build  Dublin  and  other  cities.  Founda- 
tion of  the  abbey  of  Inistioge,  Co.  Kilkenny. 

812.    The  Normans  made  a  second  descent  on  Ireland, 

815.    Arrival  of  Turges. 

820.    St.  Mary's  Abbev  at  Trim,  built. 

838.    The  Danes  in  sixty  ships  arrive  and  take  Dublin, 

844.  Tin  ges'  death.  Massacre  of  the  Northmen  by  the 
Irish. 

849     Fresh  incursions  of  Northmen. 
850.    Joannes  Scotus  Erigena  flourished. 

852.  Armagh  destroyed  by  tlie  Danes  on  Easter  Day. 

853.  Arrival  of  Amlaf.    Nose-money  is  collected. 
872     The  Northiuen  invade  Scotland  from  Ireland. 

882.  Corraack  M'CiiUen,  King  of  Munster  and  Arch- 
bishop of  Cashel. 

888.  A  great  battle  between  Maolseachluin  L,  king  of 
Ireland,  and  the  Danes. 

902.  The  Danes,  with  a  vast  fleet,  were  overthrown  by 
tlie  people  of  Dublin,  with  great  slaughter. 

916.  Fiann  Sionna,   Monarch    of  Ireland,  died  at  Tail- 

tenn,  in  Meath.  The  Danes  routed  at  Clonniel 
by  Niall  Glendubh,  Monarch  of  Ireland. 

917.  Great  Battle  at  Dublin  between  Danes  and  Irish. 

Niall  Glendubh.  Monarch  of  Ireland,  slain. 
948.    Conversion  of  the  Northmen  in  Ireland.    St.' Mary's 
Abbey,  Dublin,  founded  by  the  Northmen. 


» 


422  IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PEESEXT. 

A.  D. 

963.    Battle  of  Sulchoid.    Brian  Boru  succeeds  to  the 

throne  of  Muu>ter. 
980.    The  Xorthmeu  defeated  at  Tara  by  JNIalachy,  King- 

of  all  Ireland.    Foundation  of  the  priory  of  liohu 

patrick,  Co.  Dublin,  by  Sitric. 
933.    Brian  extends  his  raie  over  Leinster. 
997.    Struggle  between  Brian  and  Malacliy. 

1000.  The  famous  men  of  Ireland  who  flourished  in  the 

9th  and  10th  centuries  were  Albin,  Clement, 
Claude,  Donough,  Andrew,  Patrick,  Johannes 
Scotus,  Suibny,  Probiis,  Cele,  etc. 

1001.  Seizure  of  the  tlirone  of  Tara  by  Brian. 

1013.  Rebellion  of  Leinster  in  conjunction  with  the  North- 

men. 

1014.  April  23.    Battle  of  Clontarf.  near  Dublin  between 

the  Irish,  commanded  by  Brian  Boroimhe,  Mon- 
arch of  Ireland,  and  the  Danes,  command<^d  by 
Sitric.  The  Danes  were  defeated  after  11,000  of 
them  were  killed,  and  thenceforth  their  power  in 
Ireland  was  broken.  Brian  was  killed  on  the  field 
of  battle. 

1016.    Malachy  defeats  the  Northmen. 

1022.  Death  of  Malacbv. 

1023.  Teige  and  Donchad,  sons  of  Brian,  joint  rulers  of 

Munster.   Murder  of  Teige  by  Donchad. 

1038.  The  priory  of  Christ  churcli,  Dublin,  founded  by 
Sitric,  Danish  Prince  of  Dublin. 

1049.  The  cathedral  of  Kilkenny  supposed  to  have  been 
built  about  this  time  bv  St.  Canice. 

1051.  Harold  takes  refucre  with  Donchad  after  his  re- 
bellion against  Edward  the  Confessor. 

1058.    Donchad  becomes  titular  king  of  all  Ireland. 

1063.  Donchad  defeated  by  Tnrloiirrh,  son  of  Teige. 

1064.  Turloiigh  titular  king  of  all  Ireland. 

1084.  Dublin  orectel  into  a  bishopric,  whose  first  bishop 
was  one  Patrick,  an  Easterlincr,  and  chosen  by 
the  city,  who  sent  him  to  England,  to  be  con- 


chrojstological  iiistoky  of  IHELA^'D.  4.-3 


A.  D. 


secrated  by  Lanfranc,  Archbishop  of  Canterbury; 
and  in  1152  had  the  archiepibcopal  dignity  added 
to  it,  as  well  as  to  Armagh,  Cashel,  and  Tuam,  by 
Pope  Eugene  the  Third. 
1086.  Deatli  of  Turlough.  He  is  succeeded  by  his  eon 
Muikertach. 

1088.  Tigernacli,  abbot  of  Clonmacnoise,  writer  of  the 

"  Annais  of  Tigernach,"  dies. 

1089.  A  university  at  Armagh  of  considerable  splendor 

erected. 

1096.    The  cathedral  of  Waterford,  built  by  the  Ostmen, 

and  Malchus  its  first  bishop. 
1106.    Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Lispool  by  McNoel 

McKenless. 
1111.    Svnod  of  Rath  Bresail. 
1119.    Death  of  Murkertach. 
1121.    Death  of  Donald  O'Loghlin. 

1130.    St.  Mary's  church  built  on  the  island  of  Devenish, 

'  near  Silver  hill,  in  the  county  of  Fermanagh. 
1132.    Struggle  between  Connor  O'Brien  of  Munster  and 

Turlougli  O'Connor  of  Connaught. 
1142.    Abbey  of  Mellifont  founded  by  O'CarroU  of  Argiel. 
1148.    Abbey  of  Bective  founded  by  O'Malachlin  of  Meath, 

Abbey  of  Baltinglass  founded  by  Dcrmot  McMui- 

rough.    Abbey  of  Monasternenagh,  Limerick  foun- 

ded  by  O'Brien. 

1150.  In  the  twelfth  century  Ireland  wns  divided  into 

five  kingdoms,  viz.:  Ulster,  Leinster,  Meath,  Con- 
naught,  and  Munster,  besides  a  number  of  petty 
principalities,  whose  sovereigns  continually  warred 
with  each  other. 

1151.  Four  archbishops  constituterl,  viz.:  Armagh,  Dublin, 

Cashel,  and  Tuam;  and  twent;.  -three other  bishops 
Foundation  of  a  nunnery  at  Kilcloeheen,  Co.  Kil- 
kenny, by  Dermot  McMurrough.    Battle  of  Moin 
mor.   Turlough  O'Connor  titular  king  of  alllrcland. 


424  ^-      IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

1152.  Abduction  of  the  wife  of  Tiernan  O'Rouike  Prince 

Breffny  by  Dermott  Mc^Iurrougli.  King  of  Lein- 
ster.  Synod  of  Kells.  A  Cistercian  monastery 
founded  at  Athlone. 

1153.  A   Cistercian    monastery   founded   at  Newry  by 

OToclilin 

1154.  Henry  II.  of  England  1154  to  1189  Pope  Adrian  IV. 

grants  Ireland  to  Henry  II.  of  England  by  a  bull 
the  existence  of  which  is  disputed.  Conflict  of 
Turlough  O'Connor  with  O'Lochlin  of  Ulster. 
Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Odorney  in  Kerry. 

1156.  Adrian  IV.  permitted  Henry  II.  to  invade  Ireland, 
on  condition  that  he  compelled  every  Irish  family 
to  pay  a  carolus  to  the  Holy  See  and  to  hold  it  as  a 
fief  of  the  church.    Death  of  Turlough  O'Connor. 

1159.  Foundation  of  the  monastery  of  Inis  Connagh,  Tip- 
perary,  by  Donnell  O'Brien. 

1161,  O'Lochlin  titular  king  of  all  Ireland. 

1162.  AVaterford  built. 

1164.  The  cathedral  of  Derry  was  built  by  Flathberb 
O'Brolcan,  its  first  bishop;  in  this  he  was  assisted 
by  Maurice  M'Loghlan,  king  of  Ireland.  Founda- 
tion of  the  abbey  of  Boyle,  Roscommon,  by  Mau- 
rice O'Dubhay. 

1166.  Death  of  O'Lochlin.  Rory  O'Connor  titular  king 
oi  all  Ireland.  Foundation  of  the  priory  of  All- 
Saints,  Dublin,  by  Dermot  McMurrough.  Dermot 
McMurrough,  King  of  Leinster,  driven  from  his 
throne. 

1167     First  landing  of  the  Anglo-Normans  in  Ireland. 

1168.  Flight  of  Dermot  McMurrough.    He  takes  refuge 

in  England,  where  he  takes  an  oath  of  fidelity  to 
Henry  II.  who  promises  to  restore  liim. 

1169.  His   bargnin    with    Strongbow.    Invasion   of  the 

English  under  FitzSte])hen.  Landing  of  Strong- 
bow  at  Waterford,  Arrival  of  FitzSteplien.  Cap- 
ture of  Wexford.    Invasion  of  Ossorv.    Arrival  of 


CHRONOLOGICAL  IlISTOllY  OF  IHELAND. 


425 


A.  D. 

Raymond  le  Gros.  Ca|)tiirL' of  Watcrford.  Airivai 
of  Stroiigbow,  His  maniagii  witli  EvaMcMurrougb. 
Capture  of  Dublin. 

1170.  Synod   of  Armagb   and   manumission  of  English 

slaves.  Death  of  Dermot  McMurrough.  Siege  of 
Dublin.  Strongbow  returns  to  England  and  makes 
his  peace  with  Henry.  Monastery  founded  at 
Fermoy.    The  city  of  Cork  built. 

1171.  Dublin   is  besieged    and   taken  by  Raymond  le 

Gros;  Waterford  also  surrenders  to  him  and 
William  FitzGerald.  Henry  II.  arrives.  He  re- 
ceives the  submission  of  the  chieftains. 

1172.  Synod  of  Cashel.    Government  organized  by  Henry 

at  Dublin.  He  returns  to  England.  Foundation  of 
the  abbey  of  St.  Thomas,  Dublin,  by  William 
FitzAldelm.  Henry  II.  built  a  pavilion  of  platted 
twigs,  near  St.  Andrew's  church,  city  of  Dublin, 
where  he  entertained  several  Irish  princes. 

1173.  He  by  a  grant  of  divers  privileges,  encouraged  a 

colony  from  Bristol  to  settle  in  Dublin. 

1174.  Capture  of  Limerick.    Foundation  of  the  priory 

of  Kilmainham  by  Strongbow.  Richard  Earl 
Strongbow  erected  the  order  of  knights  templars, 
at  Kilmainham,  near  Dublin.  Richard  Earl  Strong- 
bow died  of  a  m^ortification  in  his  foot,  and  was 
buried  in  Christ  church,  Dublin. 

1175.  Treaty  between  Henry  and  Rory  O'Connor. 

1177.  Henry  II.   lands  near  Waterford,  and  receives  the 

submission  of  the  princes  of  the  country,  settles 
the  government,  and  makes  his  son  Prince  John 
Lord  of  Ireland. 

1178.  Foundation  of  an  abbey  at  Astrath,  Co.  Donegal, 

by  Roderick  O'Cauanan.  Foundation  of  an  abbey 
at  Dunbrody,  Co.  Wexford,  by  IIei-\'ey  Monnt- 
morres. 

1180.    Foundation  of  an  abbey  nt  Jerpoint,  Kilkenny,  by 
McGilapatrick  of  Upper  Ossory.    Foundation  of 


426  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

an  abbey  at  Middleton,  Cork,  by  the  Barrys. 
Foundation  of  an  abbey  at  Inniscourcy,  Down,  by 
Sir  John  De  Courcy.  St.  Laurence  O'Toole,  Patron 
of  Dublin,  died  in  the  Monastery  of  Augum  (now 
Eu),  France. 

1181,    Foundation  of  Holy  Cross  Abbey  by  Donneli  O'Brien. 

1183.  Foundation  of  an  abbey  at  Abbeyleix  by  Cuchry 

O'Moore. 

1184.  Prince  John  lands  at  Waterford.    Mutiny  of  the 

chief  tans. 

1185.  Foundation  of  the  priory  of  St.  John  at  Water- 

ford  by  Prince  John. 
1189.    Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Monasterevan,  Kil- 
dare,  by  O'Derapsy.    Death  of  Henry  II. 

1189.  Richard  I.,  1189-1199. 

1190.  Patrick's  church  built,  and  Christ  church,  Dublin, 

rebuilt. 

1190.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Knockraoy,  Gal- 
way,  by  Cathal  O'Connor.  Foundation  of  the 
nunnery  of  Grace-Dieu,  Co.  Dublin,  by  John 
Com  in,  Archbishop  of  Dublin. 

1193.  Foundation  of  the  priory  of  Kells,  Co.  Meath,  by 
Walter  De  Lacy.  Foundation  of  the  priory  at 
Kells,  Co.  Kilkenny,  by  Geoffrey  FitzRobert. 
Foundation  of  the  Gray  Abbey,  Down,  by  Africa 
De  Courcy.  Foundation  of  the  monastery  of  Cor- 
cumroe,  Co.  Clare,  by  .Donogh  O'Brien.  Death  of 
Rory  O'Connor. 

1195.  Limerick  obtained  its  charter  and  John  Stafford 
was  made  first  provost.  Foundation  of  the  abbey 
of  CI  are  by  Donald  O'Brien. 

1198.    Roderick  O'Connor,  last  King  of  Ireland,  died  in 
'the  82d  year  of  his  age.    Adam  Servant  was  made 
first  Mayor  of  Limerick. 

1200.  Donald  O'Brien,  King  of  Limerick  founded  a  Ca- 
thedral in  Limerick.  The  abbey  of  St.  Peter  and 
Paul  in  the  county  of  Clare,  built.  Foundation 


CHRONOLOGICAL  IIIi^TORY  OF  IKELAND.  /:T 

A.  D. 

of  Tintein  Abbey,  Wexford,  by  William,  Earl  ^idi- 
shal.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Kilcooly,  Tip- 
pei'ary,  by  Donogh  O'Brien.  Foundation  of  a 
monastery  at  Kilbeggan  by  the  Daltons.  Foun- 
dation of  the  Commandery  of  St.  John  for  Hospi- 
tallers, at  Wexford,  by  William,  Earl  Maishal. 
1202.  Foundation  of  a  priory  of  Great  Connall,  Kildare, 
by  Meyler  FitzHenry.  Foundation  of  the  priory 
of  St.  Wolstans,  Naas,  by  Adam  de  Hereford. 

1205.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Abingdon,  Limerick, 

by  Theobald  Walter.  Surrender  of  two-thirds  of 
Connaught  by  Cathal  O'Connor  to  King  John. 
Disgrace  of  De  Courcy.  Foundation  of  Dublin 
Castle  laid. 

1206.  Foundation  of  the  priory  at  Newtown  by  Simon 

Rochford.  Foundation  of  the  priory  for  Crouched 
Friars  at  Castle  Dermot  by  Walter  de  Riddlesfgrd. 

1207.  Foundation  of  the  Commandery  of  St.  John  for 
.  Hospitallers  at  Any,  Co.  Limerick,  by  Geoffrey 

De  Marisco.  Foundation  of  the  Crouched  Friary 
at  Ardee  by  Roger  de  Pinard. 

1207.  King  John  granted  a  charter  to  Dublin. 

1208.  Foundation  of  the  friary  of  St.  Saviour's,  Dublin, 

by  William,  Earl  Marshal. 

1209.  Slack    Monday y    so   called   on   account   of  the 

slaughter  committed  by  the  L'ish  on  a  great  num- 
ber of  the  Bristol  people,  who  inhabited  Dublin, 
and  went  out  to  divert  themselves  in  Cullens'  Wood, 
on  Easter  Monday,  when  the  Mountain  enemies  fell 
upon  them  and  destroyed  500  men,  besides  women 
and  children. 

1210.  English  laws  and  customs  introduced  into  Ireland. 

King  John  in  Ireland.  He  divides  it  into  coun- 
ties. Court  of  Justice  first  erected  in  Ireland. 
Pence  and  farthings  were  coined  in  Ireland,  by 
order  of  King  John. 


428  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

1211.    Foundation  of  St.  John's  Abbey,  Kilkenny,  by 
William,  Eaii  Marshal. 

1213.  Foundation  of  the  monastery  at  Tralee  by  Lord 

John  FitzThomas  FitzGerald. 

1214.  Foundation  of  the  Gray  Friary,  Cork,  by  Dermot 

McCarthy  Reagh. 

1216.  The  privileges  of  the  Great  Chharer  extended  to 

Irish  subjects. 

1217.  Henry  III.   granted   the   city  of  Dublin  to  the 

citizens,  in  fee-farm,  at  200  marks  per  annum. 

1220.  Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  the  Holy  Trinity  at 

Tuam  by  the  De  Burghs. 

1221.  Grant  of  Connaught  to  De  Burgh  by  Henry  HI. 
1224.    Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Tracton  by  Maurice 

McCartliy.  Foundation  of  the  Dominican  friary  at 
Drogheda  by  Luke  Netterville,  Archbishop  of  Ar- 
magh. Foundation  of  the  priory  of  Aughrim  by 
Theobald  Butler,  Foundation  of  the  prioiy  of 
Ballybeg,  Cork,  by  Philip  de  Barry.  Foundation 
of  the  priory  of  Atbassal,  Tipperary,  by  William 
FitzAldelm.  Foundation  of  the  priory  of  Nenagh, 
Tipperary,  b}'  the  Butlers.  Foundation  of  a  Fran- 
ciscan friary  at  Youghal  b}'  Maurice  FitzGerald. 
1^25.  Foundation  of  the  Black  Abbey,  Kilkenny,  by 
William,  Earl  Marshal. 

1226.  Foundation  of  the  convent  of  St.  Saviour's,  Water- 

ford,  by  the  citizens. 

1227.  Foundation  of  the  priory  of  Mullingar  by  Ralph 

le  Petit,  Bishop  of  Meath.    The  priory  of  St.  Mary 
and  Edward,  at  Limerick,  founded  by  Simon  Minor, 
a  citizen  of  Limerick,  in  the  reign  of  John. 
1229.    Foundation  of  St.  Mary's  Convent,  Cork,  by  Philip 
Barry. 

1232.    Fall  of  Hubert  de  Burgh.    Foundation  of  a  con- 
vent at  Carrickfergus  by  Iiui^h  De  Lacy. 
1234.    Foundation  of  the  Franciscan  friary  at  Kilkenny 


CIIEOKOLOGICAL  IIISTOEY  OF  ICELAND. 


420 


A.  D. 

by  Richard,  Earl  Marshal.    Richard,  Earl  Marshal, 
.declared  a  traitor  and  treacherously  killed. 

1235.  Foundation  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Francis,  Duh- 

lin,  by  Ralph  le  Porter. 

1236.  Foundation    of   the    monastery    of  Multifarnam, 

\Yestmeathj  by  William  Dulamare. 

1237.  Foundation  of  the  monastery  at  Mullingar  by  the 

Nugents. 

1240.  Foundation  of  the  Gray  priory  at  Drogheda  by 

the  Plunkets.  Foundation  of  the  Franciscan  friary 
at  Waterford  by  Sir  Hugli  Purccll.  Foundation  of 
the  Cistercian  monastery  at  Ennis  by  Donougli 
Carbreach  O'Brien.  Foundation  of  a  convent  at 
Lismullen,  Co.  Meath,  by  Alicia  de  la  Corner. 

1241.  Foundation   of  a  convent  at  Athlone  by  Cathal 

O'Connor.    Foundation  of  the  Dominican  friary  at 
Athenry  by  Meyler  de  Bermingham. 
1244.    Foundation  of  the  Dominican  friary  at  Coleraine 
by  the  McEvelins. 

1252.  Foundation  of  the  Dominican  friary  at  Sligo  by 

Maurice  FitzGerald. 

1253.  Foundation  of  the  Dominican  friary  of  St.  Mary, 

Roscommon,  by  Felim  O'Connor.  Foundation  of 
the  Dominican  friary  at  Athy  by  the  Hogans. 
Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Limerick  by  O'Brien. 
Foundation  of  Hacket's  Abbey,  Cashel,  by  William 
Racket.  Foundation  of  the  Gray  friary,  Dundalk, 
by  De  Verdon.  Foundation  of  the  Franciscan  friary 
at  Ardfert  by  Tliomas,  Lord  of  Kerry. 
1257.    Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Athy  by  the  Hogans. 

1259.  Rising  of  the  McCarthys  of  Desmond.  Massacre 

of  the  Geraldines.  Foundation  of  monastery  of 
Holy  Trinity,  Dublin,  by  the  Talbots;, 

1260.  Foundation  of  the  Gray  Abbey  at  Kildare  by  De 

Vesci. 

1263.    Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  St.  Mary,  Trim,  by 


% 


/JZO  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

4 

A.  D. 

Geoffrey  de  Genneville.  Foundation  of  a  monastery 
at  Armagh  by  Archbishop  Scanlen. 

1264.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Arklow  by  Theo- 
bald FitzWalter.  Contest  between  the  Geraldines 
and  the  De  Burghs. 
1268.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Rossibercan,  Kil- 
kenny, by  the  Graces  and  Walshes.  Foundation 
of  a  monastery  at  Youghal  by  the  Baron  of  Offaly. 

1269.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Leighlin  Bridge  by 
the  Carews.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Lorrah, 
Tipperary,  by  Walter  de  Burgh. 

1272.  The  Irish  petition  for  the  extension  to  them  of 
the  English  laws.  Foundatian  of  Hore  Abbey, 
Cashel,  by  Archbishop  McCarvill.  Edward  I. 
1272-1307. 

1274.    Foundation  of  the  abbey  of  Rathbran,  Mayo,  by 

the  Dexters. 
1277.    De  Clare  invades  Thomond. 
1280.    Feuds  between  the  Geraldines  and  De  Burglis. 

1290.  Quarrel  between  De  Vesci  and  the  Baron  of  Offaly. 

Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Clare-Galway  by 
John  de  Cogan.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at 
Butte vant  by  David  Oge  Barry.  Foundation  of  a 
monastery  at  Galbally,  Limerick,  by  O'Brien. 
Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Ross,  Wexford,  bv 
Sir  John  Devereux.  Foundation  of  a  monastery 
at  Clonmines  by  the  McMurronghs.  Foundation 
of  a  monastery  at  Dungarven  by  John  FitzThomas 
FitzGcrald.  Foundation  of  the  Carmelite  convent 
at  Dublin  by  Sir  Ricliard  Bagot.  Foundation  of 
the  Carmelite  convent  at  Ardee  by  Ralph  Pep- 
pard. 

1291.  Foundation  of  a  Dominican  friary  at  Kilmallock 

by  Gilbert  FitzGerald. 
1296.    Foundation  of  the  Franciscan  friary  at  Galway  by 
Sir  William  de  Burgh. 
30.    Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Cavan  by  O'Reilly. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  IIISTGIiY  OF  IRELAND.  431 

A.  D. 

1302.    Foundation  of  a  Franciscan  friary  at  Castle  Der- 

mot  by  Lord  Offaly, 
1307-27.    Edward  II. 

1307.  Foundation  of  the  Gray  friary  at  Castle  Lyons, 

Cork,  by  John  de  Barry. 

1308.  Piers  Gaveslon  lord  lieutenant. 

1310.  The  bakers  of  Dublin  drawn  on  hurdles  throngli 
the  streets,  tied  at  horses'  tails,  for  using  false 
weights. 

1312.  Foundation  of  monastery  at  Tullow,  Carlow,  by 
Simon  Lombard  and  Hugh  Tallon. 

1314.  Edward  Bruce  landed  in  Ireland  at  Oldfleet,  in 

the  Bav  of  Larne,  on  the  Antrim  coast.  Robert 
Bruce  takes  refuge  in  Ireland. 

1315.  Foundation  of    an  Augustinian   friary  at  Adare, 

Limerick,  by  Earl  of  Kildare.  Rising  of  the  Ulster 
Irish  and  the  di.-^contented  English  of  Meath.. 
Bruce's  successes.  Rising  in  Conn  aught.  Bruce 
is  crowned  King  of  Ireland,  at  Dundalk. 

1316.  Battle  of  Athenry. 

1317.  Foundation  of  a  Carmelite  convent  at  Athboy  by 

William  de  Londres. 

1318.  Battle  of  Dundalk.    Death  of  Edward  Bruce. 
1320.    Foundation   of  a  monastery  at  Bantry  by  C'Sulli- 

van.    A  university  at  Dublin  projected  by  Arch- 
bishop Bicknor. 
1324.    Richard  II.  landed  in  L-eland. 

1327.  Civil  war  between  the  De  Burghs  and  the  Butlers 
and  the  Fitzgeralds  of  Desmond.  Rising  of  tlie 
McMurroughs. 

1329.  Unsuccessful  petition  by  the  Irish  for  recognition 

bv  EnMish  laws.  Risintr  in  Thomond,  Wcstmeath, 
and  the  south. 

1330.  Maurice  FitzThomas   Fitzgerald  created  Earl  of 

Desmond  and  granted  the  palatinate  of  Kerry.  He 
renders  assistance  to  the  lords  justices  against  the 
Irish.    Rising  in  Leinster. 


32  IllELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PllESEXT. 

A.  D. 

1333.  Arrest  of  Desmond,  De  Birmingham,  and  Mande- 

ville. 

1334.  Murtler  of  the  Earl  of  Ulster.    Partition  of  his 

estates. 

1336.    Release  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond. 

1339.    Risings  in  Munster  subdued  by  Desmond. 

1341.  The  king  proposes  to  resume  the  estates  of  the 

great  landowners. 

1342.  Parliament  summoned  to  meet  at  Dublin.  Con- 

vention held  at  Kilkenny.    Petition  to  the  king, 
who  gives  way.  . 
1344.    Sir  Ralph  Ufford   seizes  some  of  Desmond*s  es- 
tates.  Desmond  surrenders,  and  is  bailed.  Kildare 
is  arrested. 

1348.  Kildare  and  Desmond  pardoned. 

1349.  The  black  death. 

1356.    Foundation  of  a  friary  at  Knocktopher  by  James, 

second  Earl  of  Ormonde. 
1361.    Lionel,  Duke   of  Clarence,   lord-lieutenant,  third 

son  of  Edward  3d  marries  Elizabeth  De  Burgh 

heiress  of  Ulster,  which  had  not  hitherto  submitted 

to  the  English  authority. 

1361.  Rising  in  Munster. 

1362.  St.  Patrick  s  Church,  Dublin,  burned. 
1367.    Statute  of  Kilkenny. 

13G9.    Risings  in  Wicklow  and  Limerick.    Richard  II., 

13V7-1399. 
1379.    Ordinance  airainst  absentees. 

1385.  Robert  De  Vere,  the  king's  favorite,  made  Mar- 
quis of  Dublin  and  Duke  of  Ireland. 

1387.    The  king  comes  of  age. 

1392.    Rising  of  Art  McMurrough  in  Leinster. 

1394.  Richard  IT.  Lands  at  Waterford  with  a  train  of 
nobles  4,000  men  at  arms  and  30,000  archers  and 
gains  tlie  affection  of  the  people  by  his  munificence 
and  confers  the  honor  of  Knierhts  on  their  chiefs. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  43:j 

A.  D. 

1395.    Rlcliard  at  Dublin.    Reforms  the  judicial  bencli. 

Returns  to  England,  leaving  to  the  Earl  of  March 
lord-Iieutenant.  Rising  of  McMorough  and  the 
O'Byrnes  of  Wicklow.  Defeat  and  death  of  the 
Earl  of  March. 

1399.  Richard's  second  expedition  to  Ireland.    The  king 

embarks  for  Milford  Haven.  Henry  lY.,  1399- 
1413. 

1400.  Immigration  of  Scots  into  Antrim,  Foundation  of 

an  abbey  at  Longford  by  O'Farrell. 

1401.  Risings  in  WickloAV.    Henry  Y.  1413-1422. 

1413.    Henry  Y.  landed  at  Clontarf.    Fresh  struggles  be- 
tween the  Euf^lish  and  the  natives. 
1415.    An  Irish  contingent  with  the  king  in  Xormandy. 
1418.    Art  McMurrough  captured. 
1421.    Risings  in  Leix.    Henry  YI.,  1422-1461. 
1433.    Wars  between  the  O'Keils  and  O'Donnells. 

1438.  Statutes    against    absentees.    The    sixth  Earl  of 

Desmond  marries  Catharine  McCormac,  and  is  ex- 
pelled from  his  estates  by  his  uncle. 

1439.  Fitzstephen's    moiety   of   the   kingdom   of  Cork 

granted  to  the  seventh  Enrl  of  Desmond. 

1449.  Richard,  Duke  of  York,  lord-licutenant. 

1450.  Rising  in  Westmeath. 

1450.    Duke  of  York  takes  refuge  in  Ireland. 

1461.  Foundation  of  New  Abbey,  Naas,  by  Sir  Rowland 

Eustace.  Foundation  of  the  Franciscan  friarv, 
Enniscorthy,  by  Donald  Kavenagh.  The  eighth 
Earl  of  Desmond  founds  the  College  of  Youghal. 

1462.  Mints  established  in  Dublin  for  coining  groats,  two- 

penny pieces,  pence,  half-pence,  and  farthings. 

1464.  Desmond,  Earl  of  Kildare,  founded  Gray  Friary, 

Ad  are,  Limerick. 

1465.  Foundation  of  a  monastery  at  Glenaini,  Co.  Antrim, 

by  Robert  Bissit.  Tlie  sanguinary  Head  Act  passed 
at  Trim  by  the  Earl  of  Desmond  deputy.  A})parci: 
and  surname  act,  thelrisli  to  dress  like  the  English 


434 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT, 


AD.  .  _  . 

14t)5  and  to  adopt  surnames.  Foundation  of  a  Francis- 
can monastery  at  Kilcrea,  Co.  Cork,  by  McCarthy 
Mor. 

14G7  The  Earl  of  Desmond  is  charged  with  treason  and 
executed. 

1472.    Inslitiilion  of  the  Brotlierhood  of  St.  George. 
1478.    Gerald,  eighth  Earl  of  Kildare,  lord-deputy  for  four- 
teen years. 

1482.  Edward  IV.  granted  the  charter  of  Kinsale,  which 
was  called  in  Irish  Cean  Taile,  i.  e.,  the  head  of 
the  sea;  alluding  to  the  promontory  called  the  Old 
Head.  The  Corporation  forfeited  their  charter  upon 
the  Spaniards  landing  in  this  town,  anno  1600,  to- 
gether with  all  their  privileges;  for  on  the  14th  of 
October,  1601,  the  burgesses  came  to  Sir  George 
Carew,  and  requested  him  to  restore  their  charter, 
seal,  mace,  and  royal  standard,  which,  upon  the  ar- 
rival of  the  Spaniards,  they  had  delivered  him  to 
keep,  the  president  said  he  could  not  return  them 
without  directions  from  England,  but  promised  to 
write  to  the  queen  in  their  favor,  which  he  did,  and 
soon  after  had  an  order  to  restore  them,  on  con- 
dition that  they  should  at  their  own  charges  repair 
their  walls. 

1484.    Foundation  of  the  Auirustinian  friary  at  Naas. 

1487.  Lambert  Sininel  crowned  in  Dublin.    Kildare  sus- 

pected of  treason. 

1488.  Kildare  is  pardoned. 

1489.  Fighting  in  Desmond.    Fighting  in  Ulster.  This 

year  a  great  rarity  was  sent  to  the  Earl  of  Kildare, 
viz.,  six  hand-guns  or  muskets,  out  of  Germany, 
which  his  guards,  during  the  time  that  they  stood 
sentinels  before  his  house  in  Thomas  Court,  bore 
on  their  shoulders,  the  Earl  being  at  this  time  lord- 
deputy  of  Ireland. 

1490.  Perkin  Warbeck  arrives  in  Cork. 
1492.    Fall  of  Kildare. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


485 


A.  D. 

1494.  Poynings  law,  subjecting  the  Irish  Parliament  to  the 
English  Council.  Sir  Edward  Poynings  iord- 
deputy.  CiUslies  the  adherents  of  Warbeck. 
Parliament  at  Drogheda,  Poynings's  Act. 

1496.  Arrest  uf  Kildare.    He  is  pardoned  and  made  lord- 

deputy,  and  governs  Ireland  till  1513. 

1497.  Warbeck  again  in  Ireland.    Fighting  between  the 

natives  and  the  Bourkes  of  Connaught.  Battle  of 
Knock  tow. 

1499.  Irish  Parliament  held  at  castle  Dermot,  m  tlie  county 
Kildare. 

1505.  Hugh  Roe  O'Donnell,  Prince  of  Tyrconnell,  died.. 

1506.  Town  of  Trim  burnt  by  lightning. 

1513.  Death  of  Kildare.  His  son  is  elected  lord- justice  m 
his  room. 

1516.    Feuds  in  Desmond.    Feuds  in  the  Ormonde  family. 

Feuds  between  Ormonde  and  Kildare,  and  Ormonde 

and  Desmond. 
1519.    Kildare  summoned  to  London. 
1521.    Rising  in  Leix  and  Offaly. 

1523.  Kildare  returns. 

1524.  Desmond  liolds  a  treasonable  correspondence  witb 

Francis  I.  of  France.    Kildare  lord-deputy.    He  is 
^  ordered  to  arrest  Desmond,  and  fails  to  do  so. 
1526.    Kildare  again  summoned  to  England,  and  lodged  in 
the  Tower.    He  is  released  on  bail. 

1528.  Rising  of  O'Connor  of  Offaly.    He  captures  Lord 

Delvin,  the  lord-deputy. 

1529.  Dosmond's  trensonable  correspondence  with  Charles 

V.    His  death.    Fall  of  Wolsey. 

1530.  KiMare  sent  back  to  suppress  O'Connor's  rising. 

1531.  O'Sullivan  tells  the  following  story :— that  an  English 

ship  took  a  Spanish  vessel  that  was  fisliing  near  the 
Durseys.  Upon  which  his  grandfather,  Dermot 
O'Sullivan,  prince  of  Bear  and  Bantry,  having 
notice  of  It,  manned  out  a  small  squadron  of  ships 
and  brought  in  both  the  Englishman  and  the  Span- 


4G8  IRELAND,  TAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

ish  vessel  to  Beaihaven.    The  English  captain  he 
lianged  and  set  the  other  at  liberty. 
1532.    KiUlare  made  lord-deputy.    He  makes  a  treaty  with 
O'Connor  and  O'Carrol. 

1534.  lie  is  summoned  to  England,  and  lodged  in  the 

Tower.  His  son,  Lord  Thomas,  rebels.  Besieges 
Dublin  Castle.  Kildare  dies  in  the  Tower.  Great 
rebellion  of  the  FitzGeralds  subdued. 

1535.  Maynooth  besieged.    Skcffington  captures  Maynooth. 

Fliecht  of  Lord  Thomas.  Submission  of  O'Connor. 
Lord  Thomas  surrenders.  Act  of  Supremacy. 
(English.)  Thomas  Cromwell  appointed  vicar-gen- 
eral. 

153G.  Lord  Leonard  Gray  lord-deputy.  Suppression  of  the 
lesser  monasteries  (English.)  Five  uncles  of  Silken 
Thomas  executed  for  High  Treason  in  London. 

1537.  Lord  Thomas  Fitzgerald  and  his  five  uncles  exe- 

cuted. Lord  Leonard  Gray's  campaign  in  Limerick. 
He  destroys  O'Brien's  Bridge.  The  supremacy 
supported  in  Ireland  by  Archbishop  Brown,  and  op- 
posed by  Archbishop  Cromer.  The  Proctors  are 
expelled  from  Parliament.  Act  of  Supremacy 
(Irish).  Act  of  Suppressions  of  Religious  Houses 
(Irish). 

1538.  Destruction  of  Relics,  etc. 

1539.  Dissolution  of  the  j^reater  monasteries.    Lord  Leon- 

ard  Gray's  expedition  into  Leister.  Battle  of  Bela- 
hoe.  His  campaign  in  Munster.  Commission  for 
the  suppression  of  religious  houses.  This  summer 
was  so  dry  in  Ireland,  that  the  Lee  at  Cork  was 
almost  dried  up,  and  several  other  rivers  also,  for 
want  of  rain. 

1540.  Henry  VIII.  assumes  the  title  of  "  King  of  Ireland." 

Sir  Anthonv  St.  Lesrer  nesrotiates  with  the  chief- 
tains.  Submission  of  the  Irish  chieftains  and  Anglo- 
Irish  loi'ds.    Distribution  of  Church  lands. 

1541.  Title  of  King  of  Ireland  conferred  on  Henry. 


CHROXOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  437 

A  D. 

1542.    Submission  of  O'Xeil  and  O'Donnel. 

1544.    Irisli  contingent  pi'esent  at  the  siege  of  Boulogne. 

General  peace  in  Ireland.    Edward  VI.,  1547-1553. 

1547.  Duke  of  Somerset  Protector.    Disturbances  in  Leix 

and  Oltaly.  Tlie  reformed  religion  embraced  by 
the  English  settlers  in  the  reign  of  Edward  VI. 

1548.  O'Moore  and  O'Connor  sent  to  England  as  prisoners. 

Civil  war  between  the  chieftains  and  the  Tanists 
in  Tyrone,  Tyrconnel,  and  Clanricarde. 

1549.  First  prayer-book  of  Edward  VI.    Introduction  of 

the  new  liturgy.  Conference  with  the  clergy  in  St. 
Mary's  Abbey.  Pillage  of  Clonmacnoise.  Dermot 
O'Sullivan,  of  Bearhaven,  was  this  year  blown  up 
in  his  castle  with  gunpowder  by  accident;  and  his 
brother  Amlavus,  who  succeeded  him,  was  killed 
soon  after. 

1552.  Books  of  geogrsiphy  and  astronomy  destroyed  in 

England,  as  being  infected  with  magic.  Arrest  of 
the  Earl  of  Tyrone  (Con  Mor.)  War  between  the 
Baron  of  Dungannon  and  Shane  O'Neil.  Mary, 
1553-1558. 

1553.  Archbishop  Dowal  recalled.    Dismissal  of  the  Con- 

forming bishops.  Operations  against  Leioc  and 
Offaly.  Restoration  of  the  young  Earl  of  Kildare. 
Same  price  set  by  act  of  parliament  on  the  head  of 
a  priest,  and  on  that  of  a  wolf. 

1555.  Fighting  in  Thomond  for  the  succession.  Continued 

immigrations  of  Scots  into  Antrim. 

1556.  Act  in  explanation  of  Poyning's  Act. 

1558.  Death  of  the  Baron  of  Dungannon.    Reduction  and 

Plantation  of  Leix  and  Offaly. 

1559.  Death  of  Con  Mor,  Earl  of  Tyrone     Shane  O'Xeil 

assumes  the  sovereignity  of  Ulster.  Sir  Henry 
Sidney  marc-hes  against  him.    Negotiations  ensue. 

1560.  Act  of   ITniformity    (Irish.)    Continued    strife  in 

Thomond.    Shane  captures  O'Donnell  and  his  wife. 

1561.  Sussex  is  defeated  by  Shane.    Plots  to  secure  his 


438  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 

A.  D. 

murder,  Shane  goes  to  England.  Death  of 
second  Baron  of  Duniramion.  Elizabeth  and  Shane 
come  to  terms. 

1562.  Shane  returns  to  Ireland.    On  the  3d  of  April,  the 

roof  and  p;irt  of  the  body  of  Christ  church  fell,  by 
which  the  ancient  monument  of  Strongbow  was 
broke. 

1563.  Tlie  Irish  from  their  peculiar  customs,  their  appear- 

ance and  dress,  were,  in  regard  to  the  English,  a 
foreign,  we  might  say,  a  remote  nation.  Wi>en  tlie 
chieftain  O'Xeil  went  upon  his  visit  and  interview 
with  Queen  Elizabeth,  he  w^as  accompanied,  and 
continued  to  be  attended  in  England  by  a  guard  of 
Gallowglasses,  armed  with  the  battle-axe,  after  the 
manner  of  their  counti-y,  their  heads  bare,  their 
hair  flowing  on  their  shoulders,  and  their  linen 
vests  with  large  sleeves,  dyed  with  saffron.  lie 
was  received  and  treated  as  an  independent  chief. 
Peace  signed  between  Elizabeth  and  Shane.  Shane 
massacres  the  Scots  of  Antrim.  Str  uggle  between 
Desmond  and  Ormonde.  Desmond  is  taken  pi  is- 
oner. 

1565.  Potatoes  first  brought  to  Ireland  from  New  Spain. 

St.  Augustine,  Fla.,  founded  by  Pedro  Melendez. 

1566.  Renewal  of  the  war  Avith  Shane.    Hugh  O'Donnel 

joins  the  English. 

1567.  ShaJie  defeated  at  Letterkenny.    Is  murdered  by  the 

McDonnels.  Turlough  Luinagh  becomes  "  the 
O'Neil."  The  rebellion  of  Shane  O'Neill,  when 
O'Neill  was  betraved  and  slain:  this  rebellion  cost 
England  £237,407  3^.  9^7.,  over  and  above  the  cess 
on  the  country,  with  the  loss  of  3,500  soldiers. 
Sidney  7i>akes  a  progress  through  Munster  and 
Connaught.  He  arrests  Desmond  and  his  brother 
Sir  John,  and  the  sons  of  the  Earl  of  Clanricardc. 
Battle  of  Lough   Swiily.    Murder   of  Darnley; 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTOPwY  OF  IRELAND.  439 


A.  D. 


Mary  Queen  of  Scots  marries  Bothwell.  She  is 
compelled  to  abdicate. 

1568.  She  takes  refuge  in  England.    Scheme  for  planting 

Desmond.  Sir  Peter  Carew  claims  estates  in  Cork 
and  Carlow.  Insurrection  in  the  Xelherlands  be- 
gins. Rising  of  Sir  James  Fitzmaurice  Fitzgerald; 
Lord  Clancarty;  and  Sir  Edmund,  Sir  Piers,  and 
Sir  Edward  Butler  in  Munster. 

1569.  Attainder  of  O'Neill  and  confiscation  of  his  Ulster 

territory.  Ormonde  detaches  his  brothers  from  the 
Munster  insurgents.  Sir  Edward  Fitton  President 
of  Connauijlit. 

1570.  Rising  of  the  Bourkes.    Sir  James  Fitzmaurice  cap- 

tures Kilmallock.  Ormonde  reduces  Munster. 
Pope  Pius  V.  releases  Elizabeth's  subjects  from 
their  allefriance.  Sir  Thomas  Smith  endeavors  to 
make  a  plantation  in  Down. 

1571.  Sir  John  Perrot  hunts  Fitzmaurice  into  the  vale  of 

Aberlow.  The  first  printing  in  Irish  characters 
brought  into  Ireland  by  Nicholas  Walsh,  chancellor 
of  St.  Patrick's,  Dublin. 

1572.  Clanricarde  is  liberated  and   Connaught  pacified. 

Surrender  of  Sir  James  Fitzmaurice. 

1573.  Walter  Devereux,  Earl  of  Essex,  obtains  a  grant  of 

territory  in  Ulster,  and  endeavors  to  make  a  planta- 
tion. 

1574.  Massacre  of  Rathlin  Island.    Escape  of  the  Earl  of 

Desmond  from  Dublin. 

1575.  Christmas  Day     Con  O'Donnell  and  Con,  son  of 

Niall  Oge  O'Neill,  escaped  from  Dublin  Castle. 

1576.  Sir   William   Drury   President    of   Munster.  Sir 

Nicholas  Malley  President  of  Connaught. 

1577.  Sidney  levies  illegal  taxes  onthePale.  Remonstrance 

of  the  loyal  English.    Rory  O'Moore,  the  outlaw, 
in  Leix  and  Kildare.    Massacre  of  Mullaghmast. 
1579.    Sir  James  Fitzmaurice  lands  at  Smerwick.  Rising 
of  the  southern  Geraldines.    Death  of  Sir  James 


IRELA^'D,  PAST  AXD  niESrXT. 


A.  D. 


Fitzmaurice.  Successes  of  the  rebels.  Death  of 
Sir  William  Drury.  Desinoiul  joins  the  rebels. 
You""hal  suffered  much  in  the  wars  of  the  Earl  of 
Desmond;  it  was  taken  and  sacke<i  by  him  in  this 
vear;  and  being  regained  by  Captain  AYliite,  it 
was  again  retaken  by  the  seneschal  of  Imokilly, 
White  and  most  of  his  men  being  slain;  by  this 
means  Youghal  was  left  quite  desolate,  not  a  man 
staying  in  it,  except  one  poor  friar;  but  the  old 
inhabitants  were  invited  to  return,  a  garrison  of  300 
men  being  left  for  their  protection.  The  mayor, 
who  had  refused  a  gari-ison,  and  had  perfidiously 
yielded  the  town  to  Desmond,  was  taken  and  hanged 
at  his  own  door. 

1580.  Italians  headed  by  Fitzmaurice  land  in  KeiTy,  they 

are  treacherou^ly  butchered  by  the  Earl  of  Ormonde. 
Campaign  of  Ormonde  and  Sir  William  Pelham  in 
Munster.  Rising  in  Wicklow.  Lord  Gray  de  Wil- 
ton defeated  at  Glenmalure.  The  Spaniards  land 
at  Smerwick.  Lord  Gray's  campaign  in  Munster. 
Massacre  of  the  Spaniards.  Rising  in  the  Pale. 
Executions  in  Dublin. 

1581.  Death  of  Dr.  Saunders,  the  Pope's  legate.  Donagh 

O'Brien,  Prince  of  Thomond,  perfidiously  hung  at 
Limerick  by  tlie  English,  though  previously 
"  pardoned." 

1582.  Death  of  Sir  John  and  Sir  James  of  Desmond.  Sup- 

pression of  the  Munster  rebellion. 

1583.  Death  of  Desmond. 

1584.  By  an  inquisition  taken  at  Cork. 

1586.  Attainder  of  the  Munster  rebels  and  confiscation 
of  their  estates.  Plantation  of  Munster.  Seizure 
of  Red  Hugli.  Attainder  of  the  Earl  of  Desmond 
and  his  followers. 

1588.  Arrest  of  Sir  John  O'Doorhertv  and  Sir  Owen  Mc- 

Toole. 

1589.  Confiscation  of  Monasrhan.    Sir  Francis  Drake,  with 


CIIROXOLOGICAL  IIISTOKY  Or  IRELAND. 


441 


A.  D. 

five  sliifs  of  the  line,  chased  into  Crosshaven  by 
tlie  Spaniards  in  a  much  larger  fleet,  and  moored 
his  ships  under  shelter  of  Corribiny-hill;  the 
Spaniards  sailed  up  the  harbor  of  Cork,  and  were 
surprised  at  not  seeing  the  ships  they  had  been  in 
chase  of;  thus  having  missed  their  prey,  they  sailed 
out  again.  Essex  landed  with  20,000  men  at 
Dublin. 

1591.  First  stone  of  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  laid.  Queen 

Elizabetli  erected  a  university  in  Dublin,  dedicated 
to  the  Blessed  Trinity,  on  the  foundation  of  an  old 
monastery  called  All  Saints;  the  first  stone  was 
laid  by  Thomas  Smith,  Esq.,  mayor  of  the  city,  at- 
tended with  tlie  regalia,  March  13th.  Adam 
Loftus,  Archbishop  of  Dublin,  was  the  first  pro- 
vost; Lucas  Challoner,  William  Daniel,  James 
Fullerton,  and  James  Hamilton,  Mere  the  first 
fellows;  Abel  Welsh,  James  Usher,  and  James  Lee. 
the  first  scholars.  Earl  of  Tyrone.  Hugh  O'Neill 
married  to  the  sister  of  Sir  Henry  Bagnal. 

1592.  Escape  of  Red  Hugh.    Red  Hugh  O'Donnell  in. 

augurated  and  proclaimed  "  The  O'Donnell." 

1593.  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  opened. 

1595.  Confederation  of  the  Ulster  chieftains.  Death  of 
Turlough  Luinagh.  Tyrone  assumes  the  title  of 
The  O'Neil. 

1597.  Fighting  on  the  Blackwater.  Anarchy  in  Connanglit. 
Death  of  Lord  Burcfh. 

159§.  Blockade  of  the  Blackwater  fort.  Battle  of  the 
Yellow  Ford.  General  risi nor.  The  Susran  Earl  in 
Munster.  Tyrone  defeats  the  English  forces  under 
Sir  Henry  Bagnell  at  Blackwater  who  is  killed. 
Great  battle  and  glorious  victory  of  the  Irish  forces 
at  Beal-an-athbiiidhe. 

1599.  O'Donnell  routed  the  English  forces  at  Sligo.  The 
Earl  of  Essex,  lord  lieutenant  of  Ireland,  lands  at 
Dublin  the  15ih  of  April,  to  make  war  on  Hugh 


442  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D.  » 

1599  O'Neill,  he  makes  a  bad  truce  with  Tyrone,  and 
returns  to  England,  for  -which  he  was  imprisoned 
by  the  queen. 

1600.  Mountjoy  lord-deputy.    He  reforms  the  army.  Sir 

George  Carew  President  of  Munster.  Sir  Henry 
Docra  occupies  Derr3\  TlieEarl  of  Oi-mond  made 
prisoner  by  the  Irish.  Ballincolly,  a  large  castle, 
was  an  ancient  seat  of  the  Barrets;  this  castle  was 
garrisoned  by  Cromwell,  and  in  the  late  wars  for 
King  James,  W^illiam  Barret  was  created  a  baronet. 
The  insurrection  of  Tvroiie  who  invites  over  the 
Spaniards  and  settles  them  in  Kinsale,  defeated  by 
the  lord-deputy  Mountjoy. 

1601.  Capture  of  the  Sugnn  Earl.    Commission  granted 

to  Captain  Roger  Harvey  to  cut  off  and  spoil  the 
rebels  of  Carberry.  Redmond  O'Gallagher,  Bishop 
of  Derry,  butcliered  by  English  soldiers  in  his  80th 
year.  July  12th,  Battle  of  Aiighrira.  Arrival  of 
the  Spaniards  at  Kinsale.  Battle  of  Kinsale.  Lord- 
deputy  Mountjoy  built  the  fort  at  Hawlbolin. 

1602.  Flight  of  O'Donnel.  Carew  reduces  Munster.  Famine 

brought  on  by  the  wholesale  destruction  of  the 
crops.  Kiiialmeaky  (formerly  part  of  Carbery) 
forfeited  by  O'Mahony  in  the  Earl  of  Desmond's  re- 
bellion; was  by  Queen  Elizabeth  granted  to  Green- 
ville and  Beechei',  English  undertakers,  by  whom  it 
was  first  planted  and  got  the  name  of  a  barony.  It 
afterward  gave  title  to  the  noble  Lewis  I^oyle, 
Lord  Viscount  Kiiialmeaky,  and  Baron  of  Bandon- 
bridge,  who  was  slain  at  the  fight  of  Liscarrol.  It 
was  formerly  a  mere  fastness,  being  all  wood  and 
bog,  so  that  the  army  could  not  pass  it,  being  ob- 
liged to  go  round  by  Kinsale,  in  their  march  from 
Cork  to  the  siege  of  Duiiboy,  in  Bearhaven;  but 
it  is  now  as  well  improved  as  any  part  of  the  coun- 
try. June,  IS,  The  O'Sullivan's  Castle  of  Danboy, 
in  Bearhaven,  after  a  gallant  defence,  taken  by 


4 


CIIROIN^OLOGICAL  IIISTOKY  OF  IRELAND.  443 

A.  D. 

the  Englisli  and  the  garrison  executed.  James  I. 
1603-1625. 

1603.  Red  Hugh  O'Donnell  died  in  Spain.    Don  Juan, 

Spanish  commander,  left  Ireland.  Hugh  O'Xeill 
submitted  finally  to  the  Lord-Deputy  at  Mellifoi^t. 
The  Popish  clergy  ordered  to  leave  Ireland.  Sir 
James  Fullerton  obtained  a  jjatent  from  King  James 
I.  for  several  concealed  church  lands;  by  virtue 
of  which  patent  he  laid  claim  to  the  college  of 
Youghal ;  but  Sir  Richard  Boyle  gave  him  a  sum 
of  money  for  his  title. 

1604.  Sir  Richard  Boyle,  in  consideration  of  £1,000  paid  to 

the  king,  obtained  a  patent  for  all  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh's  lands  in  Ireland,  in  "which  the  college  of 
Youghal  is  particularly  mentioned. 

1605.  A  proclamation  published  in  Ireland,  commanding 

the  popish  clergy  to  depart  the  kingdom.  The 
city  of  Cork  and  its  liberties  were  separated  from 
the  county  of  Cork,  and  made  a  distinct  county. 
The  same  year,  the  corporations  of  Bandon,  Clogh- 
nakilty,  etc.,  began  to  settle  their  future  form  of 
government.  Anti-Popery  declaration  of  James  I. 
•  Abolition  of  the  laws  of  Tanistry  and  Gavelkind. 

1607.  Flight  of  Tyrone  and  Tyrconnell.    O'Neill  and  the 

O'Donnells,  with  their  households  and  families  sailed 
from  Lough  Swilly. 

1608.  Sir  Cahir  O'Dogherty's  rising.    Donal  O'SuUivan, 

the  hero  of  Dunboy  assassinated  by  an  Englishman 
in  Spain.  Confiscation  of  six  counties  in  Ulster. 
King  James,  by  his  charter,  dated  at  Westminster, 
Jan.  20,  and  reign  6,  1608,  confirms  all  the  privi- 
leges, subsidy  and  poundage  excepted;  and  incor- 
porates them  by  the  name  of  the  mayor,  bailiffs, 
and  commonality  of  Youghal.  Grants  to  the  mayor 
the  oftice  of  admiral,  and  its  perquisities,  from 
Ardmorehead,  and  Cable  Island,  up  to  Tooreen; 
as  also  the  custom  of  murage,  cranage,  keyage,  and 


441 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


A.  D. 

anchorage  of  all  goods  imported  and  exported.  The 
mayor,  bailiffs,  etc.,  to  be  exempted  from  all  juries 
held  out  of  the  town,  except  the  suit  concerns  the 
king.    All  causes  to  be  tried  by  the  townsmen. 

1609.  The  cities  of  Dublin,  Waterford,  Cork,  Limerick, 
Tredagh,  Galway,  Ross,  Wexford,  Youghal,  Kin- 
sale,  and  Knockfergus,  had  tbeir  charters  renewed 
by  the  lord-deputy.  In  consequence  of  repeated 
rebellions  and  forfeitures,  514,405  acres  of  land  in 
the  province  of  Ulster,  became  vested  in  the  crown, 
and  James  I.  after  removing  the  Irish  from  their 
hills  and  fastnesses  divides  the  land  among  such 
of  his  English  and  Scotish  protestant  subjects  as 
choose  to  settle  there.  English  fleet  beaten  by  the 
French  in  Bantry  Bay. 

IGIO.    Abolition  of  the  Brehon  law. 

1611.  Connor  O'Duvany,  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor  be-  . 

headed  and  quartered  in  Dublin,  by  order  of  Sir 
Charles  Chichester.  Persecution  of  Roman  Catho- 
lics. The  plantation  of  Ulster.  The  tranquility 
of  Ireland  was  so  well  established,  that  King  James 
reduced  the  army  to  176  horses,  and  1,450  foot;  ad- 
ditional judges  were  appointed,  circuits  established 
throughout  the  kingdom,  and  Sir  John  Davies  ob- 
serves that  no  nation  under  the  sun  loves  equal  and 
indifferent  justice  better  than  the  Irish. 

1612.  The  plantation  of  Wexford.    King  James  I.  on  the 

13th  of  April  directed  a  letter  to  Sir  Arthur 
Chichester,  Lord-Deputy  of  Ireland,  in  behalf  of 
Owen  MacSwiney,  alias  Owen  Hogy  of  Mashana- 
glass,  to  accept  the  surrender  of  his  lands,  and  to 
grant  a  patent  to  restore  them  to  him.  Owen  Mac- 
Swiney, son  to  the  above  Owen,  was  attainted  anno 
1642,  for  being  concerned  in  the  Irish  rebellion, 
and  forfeited  his  estate. — Mashanaglass  signifies  a 
strongliohl  or  fortress.  The  castle  of  Diindnneere, 
built  by  Barry-Oge,  stands  near  the  confluence  of 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


445 


A.  D. 

the  Brinny  and  Bandon  rivers.  The  East-India 
Company  of  England  had  a  settlement  here  for 
carrying  on  iron-works,  and  bnilding  large  shij^s; 
for  Avhicii  uses  they  purchased  the  woods  and 
lands  for  £7,000.  The  followins:  year  two 
ships  of  500  tons  were  launched,  and  a  dock  was 
erected  for  building  more;  they  kept  a  garrison  in 
the  castle. 

1613.  King  James  I.  in  a  letter  to  Sir  Arthur  Chichester 

proposes  that  Cork  sliould  be  divided  into  two 
counties;  but  tlie*  project  was  for  that  time  op- 
posed by  tlie  first  Earl  of  Cork.  Parliament  sum- 
moned.   Creation  of  borous^hs. 

1614.  Attainder  of  Tyrone  and  the  Ulster  chieftains.  Re- 

peal of  the  old  statutes  against  tlie  Irish.  William 
Molyneux,  author  of  "  Case  of  Ireland  stated." 
born. 

1615.  Directions  given  by  the  Irish  society,  "  in  order  that 

Derry  might  not  in  future  be  peopled  with  Irisli," 
that  the  inhabitants  should  not  keep  servants  or 
Irish  apprentices. 

1616.  Hugh  O'Neill,  Prince  of  Ulster,  died  at  Rome.  Sir 

Richard  Boyle,  first  Earl  of  Cork,  created  Baron 
Boyle  of  Youghal.  It  was  in  this  town  that  the 
first  potatoes  were  landed  in  Ireland  by  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh.  The  person  who  planted  them,  imagin- 
ing that  the  apple  which  grows  on  the  stalk  was 
the  part  to  be  used,  gathered  them;  but  not  liking 
their  taste,  neglected  the  roots,  till  the  ground  being 
dug  afterward  to  sow  some  other  grain,  the  potatoes 
were  discovered  therein;  and,  to  the  great  surprise 
of  the  planter,  vastly  increased;  from  those  few, 
this  country  was  furnished  with  seed.  It  is  said 
Sir  Walter  brought  them,  together  with  tobacco, 
into  Ireland,  from  Virginia.  He  also  brought  the 
celebrated  Assane  cherry,  at  the  same  time,  from 
the  Canary  Islands. 


443  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

1617.  August  9th,  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  sailed  from  the 
liarbor  of  Cork,  on  his  last  unfortunate  expedition 
to  the  West  Indies.  The  son  and  heir  of  Hucrh 
O'Neill,  Prince  of  Ulster,  assassinated  at  Brussels. 

1610.  The  order  of  Baronets  first  instituted  in  Ireland, 
September  30th,  by  James  I.  Plantation  of  Long- 
ford and  Ely  O'Carroll.    Plantation  of  Westmeath. 

1621.  Carver,  first  Governor  of  M'^.'jsachusetts,  died.  Sir 

Fitzirerald  Aylmer  of  Donedea,  in  the  county  of 
Kildare,  was  the  first  baronet  in  Ireland;  he  was 
created  the  25th  of  January,  by  letteis  patent  of 
James  I. 

1622.  A  dreadful  fire  happened  in  Cork,  which  consumed 

the  greatest  part  ot  the  city.  The  shoemakers  re- 
ceived a  new  cliarter,  from  King  James  I.  Planta- 
tion of  Leitrim  and  parts  of  King's  and  Queen's 
counties. 

1623.  Proclamation  requiring  all  Catholic  clergymen  to 

quit  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  m  forty  days. 

1624.  Transplantation  of  native  septs  to  Kerry.  Confica- 

tion  in  Wicklow.  Projected  planting  of  Con- 
naught.    Charles  I.  1625-1649. 

1625.  Christ  Church  in  Bandon  built;  the  oldest  gravestone 

in  this  church  is  dated  1629,  over  one  JMr.  Crofts, 
one  of  the  first  burgesses  of  tliis  corporation.  The 
forts  of  Cork  and  Waterford  having  been  quite 
neglected,  the  Earl  of  Cork  lent  £500  to  the  Lord- 
President  Villers,  with  which  these  forts  were  made 
defensible.  When  Lord  Wimbleton  arrived  at 
Kinsale,  with  the  king's  forces,  Lord  Cork  took 
ten  companies  of  foot,  many  of  them  being  weak, 
and  wounded,  and  lodged  and  dieted  them  near 
three  months  upon  liis  tenants;  he  supplied  the 
general  with  £500,  and  entertained  him  and  all  his 
oflicers  noblv,  at  Lismore. 

1626.  Composition  made  by  the  Connaught  land-owners. 

*'  The  Graces"  promised. 


CIIROKOLOGICAL  IIISTOKY  OF  IRELAND.  447 

A.  D. 

1627.  Sir  Dorninick  Sarsfield  was  created  Lord  Viscount 
Kiiisale,  to  tlie  great  prejudice  ol'  tliis  ancient  and 
noble  family,  and  set  up  his  arms  in  the  town;  but 
upon  a  fair  hearing  before  the  Earl  Marshal  of 
England,  he  was  obliged  to  renounce  the  title  of 
Kinsale,  and  take  that  of  Kilmallock. 

1829.  Florence  Conroy  died.  This  year,  an  unusual  ap- 
pearance happened  at  Cork;  for  notwithstanding 
■  the  sun  shone  out  very  bright,  the  sky  was  dark- 
ened all  of  a  sudden  by  an  infinite  mnltitude  of 
stairs,  which  seemed  like  a  black  dense  cloud,  to 
hang  over  the  city.  When  they  had  passed  the 
town,  they  were  observed  by  the  citizens  to  fight 
furiously  for  several  hours  with  a  great  noise,  pick- 
ing and  wounding  each  other  with  their  bills, 
whereby  great  numbers  of  them  fell  down  to  the 
earth,  and  were  slain;  many  of  which,  with  the 
wounded,  m  .-re  taken  up  by  the  citizens  and  coun- 
try people. 

1631.  The  western  coast  of  Ireland  was  infested  by  a 
dangerous  pirate,  Nut,  who  not  only  robbed  on 
the  seas,  but  also  made  several  descents  on  the 
coast.  In  the  letter  from  the  Lord-President  St. 
Leger,  to  the  Government,  h%  informs  them  that 
Nut  had  three  ships  under  his  command,  his  own 
being  a  twenty-gun  ship  of  300  tons  burden;  a 
ship  which  he  took  belonging  to  St.  JMaloes,  of  160 
tons,  Avas  his  vice  admiral;  and  the  third  which  he 
had  taken,  belonging  to  Dieppe,  also  mounted 
fifteen  guns.  In  May,  Nut  lay  witti  his  fleet  ;it 
Crookhaven,  where  he  victualed,  watered,  and  took 
his  wife  on  board.  Soon  after,  the  Government 
sent  him  a  pardon,  which  he  at  first  refused;  but  in 
a  little  time  he  accepted  it.  June  30th,  two  Alger- 
ine  rovers  landed  their  men  in  the  dead  of  the  night 
at  Baltimore,  and  liaving  plundered  the  place,  they 
made  a  ijreat  number  of  the  inhabitants  prisoners, 


44S 


IPwELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


A.  D. 

with  100  of  tlie  English,  and  can-ied  tliera  all  to 
Algiers.  The  Earl  of  Stafford,  in  his  letters,  men- 
tions the  insolency  of  these  rovers,  who  again  in 
fested  the  coast  in  1036,  being  assisted  by  the 
French,  whom  he  calls  most  Christian  Turks;  for 
they  frequently  landed  their  captives  in  France, 
and  drove  them  in  chains  to  Marseilles,  whence  they 
shipped  them  to  Algiers.  The  carl  proposed  to  lay 
out  40,0001.  of  the  country's  money,  in  order  to  at- 
tack them,  even  to  their  own  ports.  In  a  letter  of 
his  to  Mr.  Secretary  Cook,  loth  of  September, 
1336,  he  tells  him, — the  Turks  still  annoy  this  coast; 
tlioy  came  of  late  into  Cork  harbor,  took  a  boat 
whicli  had  eight  fishermen  in  her,  and  gave  chase 
to  two  more  who  saved  themselves  amons:  the 
rocks,  the  townsmen  looking  on,  at  the  same  time, 
witlioiit  means  or  power  to  assist  them. 

1632.  Jund  3d,  the  lord-deputy  Wentworth  sent  an  ingot 

of  silver  of  300  ounces,  to  the  king,  being  the  first 
fruits  of  his  majesty's  mines  in  Munster.  Compila- 
tion of  the  "  Annals  of  Ireland"  by  the  Four 
Masters. 

1633.  Catholic  emigrants,  under  Leonard  Calvert,  sailed 

for  Maryland.  There  was  this  winter  a  prodigious 
flood  in  the  river  Lee;  which,  among  other  damages 
done  to  the  city  of  Cork,  carried  away  both  the 
north  and  south  bridges,  and  the  castles  erected 
thereon.    Wentworth  is  appointed  lord-deputy. 

1634.  Wentworth  draijoons  the   L'ish  Parliament.  This 

year,  Sir  Roger  Coppmgcr,  major  of  Cork,  carried 
away  the  city  charter,  and  also  the  sword  and 
mace. 

1635.  Province  of  Maryland  planted  by  lord  Baltimore. 

Hugh  Ward  died.  Commission  of  "defective 
titles"  in  Connaiifrht.  Sentence  on  Lord  Mount- 
morris. 

1636.  Introduction  of  the  linen  manufacture. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  IIISTOEY  OF  IRELAND.  449 

A.  D. 

1640.  Wentwortli  created  Earl  of  Strafford  and  Lortl- 

Lieutenant  of  Ireland.  Augmentation  of  the  Irish 
army.  Castle-Magner,  tlie  seat  of  Richard  Magner, 
agent  for  tlie  Irish  inhabitants  of  Orrery  and  Kil- 
more.  AVhen  Cromwell  was  at  Clonmell,  he  went 
to  pay  his  court  to  liim;  but  being  represented  as 
a  very  troublesome  person,  and  one  who  had  been 
very  active  in  the  rebellion,  Cromwell  sent  him 
with  a  letter  to  Colonel  Phaire,  then  governor  of 
Cork,  in  which  was  an  order  to  execute  the  bearer. 
Magner,  who  suspected  foul  play,  had  scarce  left 
Clonmell,  when  he  opened  the  letter,  read  the  con- 
tents, and  sealed  it  up,  instead  of  proceeding  to- 
wards Cork,  turned  off  to  Mallow,  and  delivered  it 
to  the  officer  who  commanded  there,  telling  him 
Cromwell  had  ordered  him  to  carry  it  to  Colonel 
Phaire.  This  officer  had  often  preyed  upon  Mag- 
ner's  lands,  for  which  he  was  resolved  to  be  re- 
venged. The  officer,  suspecting  no  deceit,  went 
with  the  letter,  which  greatly  surprised  the  gover- 
nor of  Cork,  who  knew  him  to  be  an  honest  man, 
and  immediately  sent  an  express  to  Cromwell  for 
further  directions.  Cromwell  being  extremely 
chagrined  to  be  so  served,  sent  orders  to  let  the 
officer  have  his  liberty,  and  to  apprehend  Magner, 
who  took  care  to  get  out  of  his  reach.  This  castle 
and  lands  were  granted  to  the  family  of  Bertridge 
for  49  arrears;  it  is  now  the  estate  of  Sir  Standish 
Hartstonge. 

1641.  Ormonde  and  Antrim  plot  to  seize  the  Irish  govern- 

ment in  support  of  Charles.  Rory  O'Moore's  plot 
to  seize  the  Castle.  Rising  and  massficres  in  Ulster. 
The  Roman  Catholic  Anglo-Irish  join  the  rebels. 
Siege  of  Drogheda.  The  castle  of  Dundareek 
(which  signifies  Mount  Prospect)  forfeited  by  Der- 
mot  MaoCarthy,  in  the  rebellion.  On  Saturday, 
the  23d  of  October  (a  day  dedicated  to  St.  Ignatius) 


430 


IRELAXD,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


A.  D. 

broke  out  the  dreadful  rebellion,  and  general  defec- 
tion of  the  Irish  2;kl  Oct.,  More  and  Maguires  re- 
bellion. The  Catholics  enter  into  a  conspiracy  to 
expel  the  English.  Sir  Phelini  O'Neill,  having 
taken  Dundalk,  marched  with  4,000  men  to  Lissen- 
garvy.  Drogheda  besieged  by  14,000  rebels.  The 
forfeited  estates  m  Ireland  sold,  amounting  to  two 
millions  and  a  half  of  acres.  In  the  rebellion  of 
1641,  the  Earl  of  Cork  shut  himself  up  in  the  town 
of  Youghal,  in  which  he  suffered  very  great  hard- 
ships, and  died  in  it  during  those  troubles.  Mas- 
sacre of  the  entire  population  (3,000)  of  Island 
Magee  by  the  garrison  of  Carrickfergus.  Arras 
surrendered  after  a  brave  defence,  by  Owen  Roe. 
Insurrection  of  the  O'Byrnes  of  Wicklow.  First 
regiment  Dublin  Volunteers,  formed  under  the 
command  of  the  Duke  of  Leinster.  Rising  of 
O'Tooles  and  O'Kavanaghs.  Great  Rebellion  com- 
menced by  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill  in  the  North.  Dec. 
15,  the  village  of  Clontarf  burned,  and  its  inhabit- 
ants put  to  the  sword,  by  order  of  the  Lords- 
justices. 

1642.  The  castle  of  poulne-long,  i.  e.,  Ship-pool,  built  by 
the  Roaches  (as  appears  from  their  arms  over  the 
chimney-piece)  was  taken  by  the  Bandonians, 
whereby  they  gained  a  correspondence  to  and  from 
Kinsale.  The  castle  of  Limerick  surrendered  to 
the  Irish.  The  battles  of  Kilruth,  Tymachoo, 
Raconnel,  Ross,  and  Ballintober.  A  reward  of 
£1,000  offered  for  the  head  of  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill. 
Battle  of  Ros.^.  Synod  of  Catholic  Bishops  at  Kells 
declared  the  Irisli  Avar  just  and  lawful.  The  Castle 
of  Ardmore,  county  Waterford,  yielded  on  condi- 
tion of  mercy,  nevertheless  one  hundred  and  forty 
men  were  put  to  the  sword.  First  meeting  of  the 
General  Assembly  at  Kilkenny.  Risings  in  Con- 
naught  and  Munster.    Charles  raises  his  standard 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


A.  D. 

at  Nottingham.  Arrival  of  Colonel  Owen  O'Neil 
and  Colonel  Preston.  Svnod  at  Kells.  Battle 
of  Kilrush.    Confederation  of  Kilkenny. 

1643.  June  4rth.    The  battle  of  Castle  Lyons.    June  13th, 

Battle  of  Clones.  Truce  with  Ormonde  by  the  Irish 
Confederates.  July  21st,  arrival  of  Father  P. 
Scarampi,  Commissioner  from  the  Holy  See  to  the 
Irish  Confederation.  Galway  surrendered  to  the 
Irish,  August  6th,  Charter  and  other  records  of 
Cloughnakilty  saved  by  Mr.  Walter  Bird,  who  at 
the  liazard  of  his  life  escaped  with  them  to  Bandon, 
in  the  Irish  rebellion.  Two  full  companies  of  Lord 
Forbe's  regiment  were  slain  in  the  town,  1642;  the 
third  company  being  Bandonians,  made  good  their 
retreat  a  full  mile,  to  an  old  fort  on  the  highway 
to  Ross,  which  they  maintained  till  the  rest  of  the 
regiment  came  to  their  reUef.  Ballingcarrigg  castle 
built  by  Randel-Oge.  Hurley,  or,  as  some  say,  by 
his  wife.  Battle  of  Ross.  Ormonde  made  a  mar- 
quis. Cessation  agreed  upon  between  Ormonde 
and  the  rebels.  The  war  continued  on  behalf  of 
the  Parliament  by  the  Scots  in  Ulster,  by  Broghill 
and  Inchiquin  in  the  south,  and  by  Sir  Charles 
Coote  in  Sligo. 

1644.  Ormonde  lord-lieutenant.    The  Irish  contingent  cut 

off  at  Nantwich. 

1645.  April  oth,  Battle  of  Cappoquin.    Arrival  of  Rinucini, 

the  Pope's  legate. 

1646.  June  6th,  Battle  of  Benburb,  between  O'Neill  and 

Monroe,  glorious  victory  of  the  Irish.  July  25 th, 
peace  made  by  the  Irish  Confederates  with  tlio 
English.  Capitulation  of  Ballynakill.  Peace  con- 
cluded with  the  Irish,  Catholics.  Divisions  among 
the  Confederates.  A  treaty  signed  between  Or- 
monde and  the  Confederates.  Rinucini  and  Owen 
Roe  seize  the  government  at  Kilkenny. 


452  IKELAXD,  PAST  A:XD  PEESE^'T. 

A.  D. 

1647.  Ormonde    surrenders   Dublin   to   the  Parliament, 

Battle  of  Dungaa  Hill.  Incliiquin  takes  Cashel 
Battle  of  Knocknanoss.  Owen  Roe  burns  the 
country  about  Dublin,  so  that  200  fires  were  seen 
from  a  steeple  there.  February  15th  the  Earl  of 
Desmond  beheaded  at  Drogheda. 

1648.  Inchiquin  deserts  to  the  Confederates.  Rinucini 

takes  refugee  with  Owen  Roe's  armv.  Strife  amonor 
the  Confederates.  Royalist  risings  in  Kent,  Essex, 
and  South  Wales.  Return  of  Ormonde.  Ausrust 
2d,  battle  of  Rathmines.  Rupert^  and  his  fleet  ar- 
rive at  Kinsale. 

1649.  Oliver  Cromwell  voted  general  of  all  the  parliament 

forces  in  Ireland.  The  British  army,  under  the 
Lord  of  Ardes,  joined  the  king's  party  and  soon 
after  beseiged  Londonderry.  The  king's  army, 
under  Ormonde;  encamped  at  Finglass.  near  Dublin. 
Tredagh  surrendered  to  the  Lord  Inchiquin;  who, 
having  soon  after  taken  Dundalk  and  other  garri- 
sons, returned  to  the  camp  at  Finglass.  August 
14th,  Oliver  Cromwell  landed  at  Dublin  with  9,000 
foot,  and  4,000  horse;  began  his  battery  next  day, 
and  took  Drogheda  by  storm,  after  being  twice  re- 
pulsed. Dundalk  immediately  submitted.  Mas- 
sacre at  Drogheda  by  the  troops  under  Oliver 
Cromwell.  The  English  House  of  Commons  ap- 
point a  day  of  thanksgiving  for  the  massacre  at  the 
town  of  Drogheda.  Peace  published  between  the 
king  and  the  confederates.  Death  of  the  king. 
The  Republic,  1649-1653.  Prince  Charles  pro- 
claimed at  Cork.  Flight  of  Rinucini.  Ormonde 
besieges  Dublin.  Battle  of  Rathmines.  Cromwell 
came  before  "Wexford,  and  summoned  the  town, 
which  betook  in  three  days  by  storm,  putting  2,000 
to  the  sword.  After  the  taking  of  Ross,  Cromwell 
besieged  Waterford,  but  drew  off  again.  The 
garrisons  in  the  county  of  Cork  revolt  to  him. — He 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 

A.  D. 

marched  out  of  winter  quarters,  and  took  many 
small  places  in  Munster.  The  lady  of  Lord  Roche 
defended  the  castle  of  Castle-town  Roche,  in  a  most 
gallant  manner  for  several  clays,  against  the  parlia- 
ment forces,  who  besieged  the  castle  with  a  battei  y 
erected  for  that  purpose.  When  Cromwell  wns 
preparing  to  invest  Kinsale,  the  mayor  of  the  town 
delivered  up  the  keys  to  him;  which,  instead  of  re- 
turning (as  customary)  to  tlie  magistrate,  lie  handed 
them  to  Colonel  Stubber,  the  governor;  it  was 
whispered  to  Cromwell,  that  Stubber  Avas  not  over- 
strict  in  any  religion;  may  be  not,  replied  Crom- 
well, but  as  he  is  a  soldier  he  has  honor,  and  there- 
fore we  will  let  his  religion  alone  at  this  time. 

1650.  Kilkenny  surrendered  to  Cromwell.     Clonmel  be- 

sieged and  surrendered  after  a  vigorous  defence 
which  cost  Cromwell  2000  men.  Ormonde  sent,  to 
treat  with  Cromwell  about  the  terms  on  which  the 
Protestants  of  his  party  might  be  relieved.  Crom- 
well embarked  for  England  at  Youghal,  and  left 
the  command  to  Ireton,  his  son-in-law\  Flight  of 
Ormonde  and  Inchiquin.  Death  of  David  Rothc, 
the  celebrated  Bishop  of  Ossory.  June  21st,  defeat 
of  the  Irish  forces,  near  Lough  Swilly,  under  Heber 
MacMahon. 

1651.  Capture  of  Athlone.    Capture  of  Limerick  bj^  Ireton 

after  a  six  months  siege.  November  30th,  Right 
Rev.  Dr.  O'Brien,  Bishop  of  Emly,  executed  by 
Ireton.    Death  of  Ireton  by  the  Plague. 

1652.  Surrender  of  Galway.    Act  for  the  Settlement  of 

Ireland.  Survey  of  Ireland.  Banishment  of  the 
Irish  soldiery.  Ross,  in  the  county  of  Kerry  (a 
castle  in  an  island\  yielded  up  to  Ludlow,  after  he 
had  caused  a  small  ship  to  be  carried  over  the 
mountains,  and  set  afloat  in  the  lough,  which  ter- 
rified the  enemy.  At  Kilkenny  was  held  the  first 
high  court  of  justice,  for  trial  of  such  as  were  ac-- 


4j4  ikelaxd,  past  and  presext. 

A.  D. 

cused  of  barbarous  murders  in  the  rebellion.  An- 
other was  held  in  Dublin,  where  Sir  Phelim  O'Neill 
was  condemned  and  executed.  Galway  surrendered 
to  Coote  on  terms. 

1653.  Transplantation  of  the  Irish  beyond  fhe  Shannon. 

Two  sons  of  Feagh  M'Hiigh  O'Byrne  committed  to 
Dublin  Castle.  The  "  rebellion"  of  1641  declared 
at  an  end.    The  Protectorate,  1653-1660. 

1654.  July  14th,  the  "  transplanting"  of  Irish  families  of 

the  Pale  to  Connaught,  all  must  be  gone  befoi-e 
March  next."  The  first  Protectorate  Parliament. 
Thirty  members  sit  representing  Ireland. 

1655.  Act  of  explanation.    The  Five  Mile  Act. 

1656.  The  second  Protectorate  Parliament.    Henry  Crom- 

well lord-lieiitenant. 

1658.  The  third  Protectorate  Parliament.  Death  of  Crom- 
well.   He  is  succeeded  by  Richard  Cromwell. 

1660.  Coote  and  Broghill  seize  the  commissioners  in  Dublin 
Castle.  Charles  II.,  1660-1685.  Re-establishment, 
of  the  Church.  The  kini^'s  declaration  for  the  set- 
tlement  of  Ireland.  Synod  at  Dublin  dispersed  by 
government.  The  body  of  Oliver  Cromwell  hanged 
at  Tyburn,  and  buried  under  the  gallows. 

1663.  Court  of  Claims  opens  in  Dublin.    Blood's  plot. 

Ireland  excluded  from  the  Navigation  Act. 

1664.  The  Conventicle  Act.    A  Protestant  militia  raised 

in  Ireland,  Sept.  16th. 

1665.  This  year,  the  magistracy  of  Dublin  was  honored 

with  the  title  of  lord-mayor;  Sir  Daniel  Bellingham 
being  tlie  first  that  bore  that  title;  £500  per  annum 
being  allowed  by  the  crown  to  support  that  honor. 

1666.  Prohibition  of  export  to  England  of  Irish  cattle  and 
■  provisions. 

1667.  November  30th,  Dean  Swift  born. 

1670.  The  %vooden  bridge  over  the  Liffey,  commonly  called 
the  Bloody  Bridge,  built.  Charles  Fort  at  Kinsalo, 
began  and  received  that  name  by  the  Duke  of 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  4::5 

A.  D. 

Ormonde, who  came  to  review  it;  it  cost  £73,000  on 
the  works  to  the  sea,  100  pieces  of  brass  cannon 
were  mounted,  carrying  from  24  to  42  lb.  ball. 

1671.  The  apprentices  in  Dublin  assembled  Avith  the  intent 

to  break  down  the  wooden  bridge,  twenty  of  whom 
were  seized  and  committed  to  the  castle,  but  after- 
wards as  they  were  carrying  to  Bridewell,  under  a 
guard  of  soldiers,  they  were  rescued,  and  foui*  of 
them  killed  in  the  fray;  hence  it  was  called  Bloody 
Bridge.  The  occasion  of  tbis  riot  was  on  account 
of  a  ferry  belonging  to  the  city,  which  the  building 
of  this  bridge  affected.  Petition  to  review  the  Act 
of  Settlement. 

1672.  Declaration  of  Indulgence, 

1673.  The  English  Parliament  contemn  the  Irish  petition. 

1674.  Murrough  O'Brien,  Earl  of  Inchiquin  died. 

1670.    Essex  Bridge  in  Dublin,  built  by  Sir  Humphry  Jarvis. 

The  South  bridge  of  the  city  of  Cork,  built  by  the 
corporation. 

1678.  Drawbridges  made  on  the  north  and  south  brid^res 

of  the  city  of  Cork,  by  order  of  Lord  Shannon,  the 
governor.  Ormonde  issue<l  a  proclamation  that  all 
who  exercise  spiritual  jurisdiction  under  ihc  Pope 
should  on  this  date  quit  Ireland.  Arrest  of  Ari  }j- 
bishop  Talbot. 

1679.  Arrest  of  Archbishop  Plunkett. 

1680.  Sir  Cahir  O'Dogherty  beheaded. 

1681.  Archbishop  Plunkett  executed  by  the  English. 
1G83.    Kilmainliani  hospital  built  at  the  charge  of  the  arm;*, 

by  the  Duke  of  Ormonde. 

1685.  Richard  Talbot  made  lieutenant-general,    James  TI. 

1685-1691.  Reconstruction  of  the  army.  Fir^t 
Netvspaper  published  in  Dublin.  James  II.  pro- 
claimed in  Dublin. 

1686.  The  Earl  of  Tyrconnel,  sworn  lord-lieutenant  of  Iro- 

land,  who,  not  being  able  to  prevail  on  the  magis- 
tracy of  the  city  of  Dublin  to  admit  Roman  Catho- 


45C  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

lies  to  their  freedom,  had  a  quo  warranto  brought 
against  the  city  charter,  and  appointed  Cuihohc 
judges  in  every  court. 

1687.  Reconstruction  of  the  corporations.    Tyrconnel  lord- 

lieutenant. 

1688.  Acquittal  of  the  seven  bishops.    Flight  of  James. 

Closing  of  the  gates  of  Derry  and  Enniskillen. 
King  James  landed  at  Kinsale.  King  James  heard 
mass  in  a  cliapel  belonging  to  a  monastery,  on  the 
nortli  side  of  the  city  of  Cork;  he  Avas  supported 
through  tlie  streets  of  the  city  by  two  Franciscan 
friars,  and  attended  by  many  others  of  the  same 
order  in  tlieir  habits.  The  possessions  of  this 
house  were  originally  granted  to  Andrew  Skiddy, 
by  Queen  Elizabeth,  who  assigned  them  to  tlieEarl 
of  Cork,  and  by  liim  given  to  his  son,  the  Lord 
Broghill,  afterwards  Earl  of  Orrery.  This  house  is 
now  entirely  demolished.  James  II.  abdicated, 
November  4th,  William  III.  landed.  Dec,  the 
gates  of  Londonderry  shut  against  the  Earl  of 
Antrim's  reu:itnent. 

1689.  March  12th,  landing  of  James  II.,  at  Cork.    An  Irish 

Parliament  summoned  by  James  II.,  at  Dublin. 
Carrickfergus  surrendered  on  articles.  Ulster 
AVilliamites  beaten  at  "break  of  Dromore."  Six 
thousand  Fjench,  under  Lauzane,  entered  Kinsale. 
March  14th,  James  II.,  entered  Dublin.  Bishop 
John  England  born  in  Cork.  Tyrconnel  raises  regi- 
ments for  James.  William  proclaimed  at  Derry. 
Siege  of  Derry  and  Eimiskillen.  Siege  of  Derry 
raised.  Battle  of  Newtown  Butler.  Arrival  of 
Schombero^.  lie  is  besiecfed  at  Dundalk.  Rout  of 
the  Williamites  from  Lifford  to  Derry.  The  Eng- 
lish fleet  under  Herbert  beaten  by  the  French  under 
Cliateaurenaud  in  Bantry  Bay,  bringing  supplies  to 
James  II.  June  21st,  Williamites  beaten  at  Done- 
gal.   Schomberg  landed  at  Bangor,  in  the  county 


CHKOKOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  457 

A.  D. 

Down,  with  10,000  Dutch  invaders  to  help  the 
Protestant  rebels  in  the  North  of  Ireland. 

1690.  Charlemont  captured.    \Yilliam  lands  at  Carrick- 

fergus.  Battle  of  Beachy  head.  Abortive  siege  of 
Limerick.  William  returns  to  England.  Capture 
of  Cork  and  Kinsale  by  Marlborough.  The  Irish 
burnt  Edenderry.  June  1st,  King  Willian  III. 
landed  at  Carrickfergus.  June  18th,  Battle  of 
Athlone.  The  Duke  of  Grafton  mortally  wounded 
at  Cork.  July  1st,  battle  of  the  Boyne.  King 
William  in  viewing  the  Irish  army  by  the  Boyne, 
narrowly  escaped  being  killed  by  a  cannon  ball 
which  grazed  his  right  shoulder.  July  2d,  King 
James  fled  to  Waterford,  from  thence  to  France. 
July  17th,  Athlone  besieged  by  Lieutenant-General 
Douglas.  July  25th,  City  of  Limerick  besieged. 
August  9th,  battle  of  Ardnocner,  3,500  of  the  Eng- 
lish slain.  Prince  of  Orange  appeared  before 
Limerick.  August  11th,  William  III.  opens  trenches 
before  Limerick.  August  14th  English  camp  sur- 
prised and  cannon  blown  up  by  Sarsfield.  August 
27th,  the  English  driven  from  the  walls  of  Limerick, 
the  Irish  women  fighting  in  the  breach.  Cork  sur- 
rendered to  the  Earl  of  Marlborough.  Novcmbc  r 
15th,  surrender  of  Kinsale. 

1691.  February  20th,  William  of  Orange  proclaimed  king 

within  the  walls  of  Derry.  Execution  of  Conor 
Lord  Maixuire  at  Tvburn.  Battle  of  Aui^hrim. 
Surrender  of  Galw^ay.  Second  siege  of  Limerick. 
Limerick  surrendered  to  De  Giiu-kle,  general  terms 
of  treaty  being  agreed  upon.  On  the  12th  of 
October,  the  Breda  frigate,  lying  at  anchor  in  Cork 
Harbor,  with  a  number  of  Irish  on  board,  took  fire 
and  blew  up.  Treaty  of  Limerick  ("  The  Violated 
Treaty")  signed,  November  1st.  The  las^  of  the 
Irish  array  march  out.  Sarsfield,  with  4,500  men, 
landed  at  Brest,  after  the  capitulation  of  Limerick^ 


» 


4n3  IRELAXD,  PAST  AND  PRESEXT. 

A.  D, 

October  18lh,  the  French  fleet,  consisting  of  18 
men-of-war,  4  fire-ships,  and  twenty  ships  of  bur- 
den, arrived  in  the  Shannon,  with  ammunition  and 
provisions  for  the  relief  of  Limerick;  in  two  days 
after  the  articles  were  signed,  there  was  news  of 
their  being  come  to  Dingle  Bay.  The  English  and 
Dutch  Symran  fleets  anchored  in  the  port  of  Kinsale, 
and  the  grand  fleets  of  both  nations  at  the  moutli 
of  the  harbor,  extending  from  the  Old-head  lo 
Youghal.  Thus,  the  importance  of  Kinsale  was 
again  known  to  England,  when  upon  a  false  alarm, 
that  the  French  fleet  was  approaching,  the  men  of 
war  could  draw  into  a  line  of  battle,  without  any 
trouble  or  concern  for  the  merchant  ships,  which 
were  secured  in  the  harbor;  nor  was  this  the  only 
benefit  England  received  from  Kinsale  this  summer, 
for  the  Virginia  and  Barbadoes  fleets  likewise  took 
sanctuary  there,  till  an  opjiortunity  presented  to  con- 
vey them  safe  to  their  respective  ports.  The  city 
of  Cork  made  a  resistance  for  five  davs  asjainst  a 
regular  army,  under  the  command  of  the  Earl  of 
Marlborough;  the  garrison,  consisting  of  4,500  men, 
surrendered  on  Michaelmas  Day,  and  were  made 
prisoners  of  war.  MacEliigot,  the  governor,  took 
£500  from  the  inhabitants  to  save  it  from  fire,  and 
the  next  day  set  fire  to  it  at  both  ends.  June  28lh, 
bridge  of  Athlone  valiantly  defended  by  the  Irish 
aojainst  an  overwhelminc:  force  of  Enjjlish.  General 
Ginckle  departs  for  England. 

1692.  Emigration  of  Irish  Roman  Catholics.    Exclusion  of 

Roman  Catholics  from  Parliament.  The  House  of 
Commons  resist  the  initiation  of  Money  Bills  by 
the  Privy  Council. 

1693.  The  flesh-sha?nbles  of  Cork  erected  by  the  corpora- 

tion in  the  center  of  the  city,  at  the  expense  of 
£481  5s.  Patrick  Sarsfield  fatally  wounded  at  the 
battle  of  Landen. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


433 


A.  D. 

-694.  The  tower  of  Limerick  fell  suddenly;  it  contained 
218  barrels  of  powder,  which  by  the  striking  of 
the  stones,  took  fire,  and  blew  up;  it  greatly  shat- 
tered the  town,  killing  about  100  persons,  and 
wounding  many  others. 

1695.  In  the  winter  of  this  year,  and  a  good  part  of  the 

following  spring,  there  fell  in  several  places  in  Ire- 
land a  kind  of  thick  dew,  whick  the  country  people 
called  butter,  from  its  color  and  consistence,  being 
soft,  clammy,  and  of  a  dark  yellow,  as  Doctor  St. 
George  Ashe,  then  lord  bishop  of  Cloyne,  has  re- 
corded in  the  Philosophical  Transactions. 

1696.  Act  for  disarming:  the  Roman  Catholics.    Penal  act 

as^ainst  foreisrn  education.  Encrlish  act  amendins: 
the  Navigation  Act  unfavorably  to  Ireland.  Oct. 
Linen  manufacture  encouraged.  The  town  of 
Youghal  having  manned  out  a  boat,  with  about  40 
seamen  and  soldiers,  took  a  French  privateer  that 
lay  at  anchor  under  Cable  Island.  The  privateer 
had  seized  on  some  boats  belonging  to  the  town, 
and  sent  in  one  of  them  for  provisions,  keeping  the 
rest  as  hostasres.  The  French  lost  five  men  in  the 
engagement,  and  Patrick  Comerford  their  captain, 
with  the  lieutenant  and  sixteen  more,  were  wounded. 
Sept.  22d,  the  Duke  of  Grafton  was  mortally 
wounded  by  a  musket  bail:  a  blacksmith,  who  stood 
at  the  back  of  the  old  post-office,  opposite  Sullivan's 
Quay,  taking  aim  at  the  duke  when  he  was  giving 
the  word  of  command,  shot  him  through  the  heart, 
of  which  he  died  in  a  few  hours.  He  was  killed  on 
a  piece  of  ground  adjoining  the  south  mall,  which 
to  this  day  is  called  Grafton's  Alley. 

1697.  The  magazine  at  Athlone  blown  up  by  lightning. 


4G0  IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A  D. 

1698.  William  Molyneux,  author  of  Ireland's  Case,  died  in 

Dublin,  October  13tli.  The  old  barrack  of  Cork 
built.  Trading  people  have  ever  aimed  at  exclusive 
privileges;  of  this  there  are  two  extraordinary  in- 
stances: two  petitions  were  this  year  presented  from 
Folkstoneand  Aldborough,  stating  a  singular  griev- 
ance that  they  suffered  from  Ireland,  by  the  Irish 
catchins:  herrw£rs  at  Walerford  and  Wexford,  and 
sending  them  to  the  Streights,  and  thereby  fore- 
stalling and  ruining  petition(?rs'  markets.  In  this 
year,  according  to  Captain  South's  account,  in  the 
Phil.  Transact.,  there  were  in  the  city  of  Cork  58 
seamen,  34  fishermen,  91  boatmen,  in  all  183; 
whereof  111  were  Papists;  but  the  number  is  at 
present  (1792)  so  great,  they  are  not  easily  to  be 
reckoned.  The  Lords  and  commons  of  England 
addressed  King  William  to  employ  his  influence 
in  Ireland,  to  suppress  the  woolen  manufacture 
theiein;  to  which  he  answered  tlie  lords,  that  his 
majesty  will  take  care  to  do  what  their  lordships 
required;  and  to  the  commons  he  answered,  I  shall 
do  all  that  in  me  lies  to  discourage  the  woolen  trade 
in  Ireland.  Molyneux's  book  on  the  independence 
of  the  Irish  Parliament.  Penal  act  against  mixed 
marriages.  Molyneux's  Case  of  Ireland"  ordered 
to  be  burnt  by  the  common  hangman.  Act  for  the 
endowment  of  M.iynooth  Collecre  passed 

1699.  Tuckey's  Bridge  built,  from  Tuckey's  quay  to  the 

East  Marsh,  by  Captain  Dunscombe.  An  English 
law  passed  this  year  to  prevent  the  Irish  importing 
woolen  goods,  and  for  the  encourngemont  of  the 
woolen  manufactures  of  this  kingdom,  etc.  Irish 
act  laying  prohibitive  tariff  on  the  export  of  wool. 
An  export  duty  upon  Irish  cloths,  which  destroyed 
that  branch  of  Irish  manufacture. 

1700.  The  Resumption  Act. 

1701.  Act  disqualifying  Roman  Catholic  solicitors.  March 


CIIROXOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAT^D.  4G1 


A.  D. 


8tli,  King  William  III.  died.  Dec.  26th,  the  Play- 
House"  in  Smock  Alley,  now  Essex  street  west,  fell, 
and  killed  and  wounded  several  of  the  persons  as- 
sembled. 

1702.  Cremona  saved  by  a  portion  of  the  Irish  brigade. 

1703.  February  28th,  Sir  Toby  Butler,  Sir  S.  Rice,  and 

Counsellor  Malone  heard  in  the  Irish  House  of 
Lords  against  the  "  Bill  to  prevent  the  further 
growth  of  Popery."    Anne,  1702-1714. 

1704.  Penal  act  against  the  Roman  Catholics.    The  num- 

ber of  "Popish"  clergy  in  each  county  in  the  king- 
dom of  Ireland,  returned  to  the  clerk  of  the  council, 
pursuant  to  an  act  of  parliament  for  registering  the 
Popish  clergy;  1,080  in  the  whole  kingdom,  of 
which  number  4  were  in  the  citv,  and  58  in  the 
county  of  Cork. 

1706.  A  great  part  of  the  walls  of  the  city  of  Cork  being 
in  a  ruinous  condition,  there  was  an  order  of  council 
'  to  have  several  of  the  breaches  stopped,  and  all  the 
stairs  leading  thereto  taken  down;  and  the  same 
year,  a  great  part  of  the  city  wall  facing  the  East 
Marsh  was  taken  down  accordingly. 

1708.    Further  act  against  Roman  Catholic  solicitors. 

1710.  Penal  act  against  the  Roman  Catholics.    March  25th, 

an  act  obliging  all  registered  priests  to  take  the 
oath  of  abjuration  (in  which  the  Mass  was  declared 
'  idolatrous)  took  effect  on  this  day.  This  year  the 
Jast  presentment  for  killing  wolves,  was  made  in 
the  county  of  Cork. 

1711.  Duke  of  Ormonde  made  commander-in-chief. 

1712.  The  wooden  bridge  at  the  north  end  of  the  city  of 

Cork  was  taken  down,  and  a  fine  bridge  erected  in 
its  place;  the  piers,  arches  and  abutments  being  faced 
with  hewn  stone. 

1713.  The  wooden  bridge  at  the  south  end  of  the  city  of 

Cork  was  taken  down,  and  a  handsome  stone  bridge 
erected  at  the  corporation  charge. 


4G3  IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

1714.  Fall  of  the  Tory  rainistiT.    George  I,  1714-1727. 

1715.  Flight  of  the  Duke  of  Ormonde  and  Bolingbroke. 

They  are  attainted. 

1716.  The  Septennial  Act.    The  battle  of  Glanmire  fought 

on  Saturday  the  16th  of  June,  occasioned  by  the 
regiment  who  lay  in  the  old  barrack,  having  turned 
out  for  their  arrears  and  pay,  which  being  detained 
from  them  some  time  past,  they  marched  out' of 
the  barrack,  and  went  up  to  lower  Glasheen,  with 
drums  beating  and  colors  flying,  crossed  the  Lee, 
went  to  the  foot  of  Dublin  Hill,  and  encamped 
them-^elves  in  a  fleld  belonging  to  Peter  Healy, 
where  they  lialted  a  few  days,  and  then  marched 
to  Glanmire,  at  this  time  they  were  pui'sued  by  a 
regiment  of  soldiers  (who  landed  that  morning  at 
the  Cove  of  Cork)  with  two  brass  field-pieces,  upon 
which  the  mutineers  made  a  stand  at  the  further 
side  of  the  bridge,  headed  in  particular  by  one  of 
themselves,  a  Dutchman,  named  John  Christopher 
Gurvy,  and  some  others  of  their  own  regiment,  who 
made  a  resolute  defence;  their  ammunition  havitig 
failed,  tliev  made  use  of  their  buttons  as  a  substi- 
tute  for  bullets,  Avhen  at  last  they  gave  way,  and 
retreated  in  disorder;  the  Dutchman,  together  with 
Coffy  and  Holland,  two  of  the  ring  leaders,  were 
taken,  tried  by  a  court-martial,  and  shot  at  Gallows- 
green;  many  othei*s  were  severely  whipped. 

1717.  Thomas  Parnell,  poet,  died.    Brigadier  Henry  Lut- 

trell  assassinated. 

1718.  William,  Archbisliop  of  Dublin,  and  W.  Connolly, 

Esq.,  sworn  Lords-Justices. 

1719.  The  quay  called  Kyrlc's  Quay,  on  the  east  side  of 

the  Xorth  Jail,  was  built.    Conflict  between  the 
English  and  Irish  Houses  of  Lords.    Act  subjecting 
.the  Irish  to  the  English  legislature. 
1721.    Twenty  persons  killed  in  the  Four  Courts,  Dublin, 
bv  the  fallino:  of  a  chimnev  Avhich  had  taken  fire. 


CIIKOXOLOGICAL  IIISTOliY  OF  IKELAIS^D.  463 

A.  D. 

1722.  Woods  lialf-pence  were  coined  to  circulate  in  Ireland 
and  America,  but  Dr.  Jonathan  Swift  by  his 
D rapier  leUers  raised  such  a  spirit  of  opposition, 
that  nobody  would  take  them  and  thev  never  at- 
tained  circuhition  in  Ireland.  Captain  Henry- 
Ward  and  Francis  Fitzgerald,  were  hanged  and 
quartered  at  Gallows-green,  Cork,  on  Wednesday- 
April  18th,  for  enlisting  men  for  the  service  of  the 
Pretender;  they  were  prosecuted  by  Maurice 
Hayes.  William  Roe  stood  in  the  pillory  on 
Saturday  the  19th,  and  was  severely  a\  hipped  on 
Wednesday  the  23d  of  May,  for  repeating  the  fol- 
lowing seditious  words:  May  King  James  the  Tidrd 
enjoy  his  own  again!  Daniel  Murphy,  on  Satui-day 
the  9th,  and  Patrick  Sweeney,  on  Saturday  the  16th 
of  June,  were  executed  at  Gallows-green,  Cork,  for 
enlisting  men  for  tiie  service  of  the  Pretender,  j^t 
the  prosecution  of  Maurice  Hayes;  they  were  tried 
by  a  special  commission. 
1724.  TheDrapier  letters.  Prosecution  of  Swift's ])rintcrs. 
Excitement  against  Wood^shalf-pence. 

1725.  The   patent   cancelled.    Potato   famine.    St.  Fin- 

barr's  Church  taken  down,  and  rebuilt  in  1735. 

1726.  The  east  end  of  Nicholas's  Church  in  Cork,  greatly 

damaged  by  thunder  and  lightning,  on  Monday, 
June  20th;  some  of  the  books  and  cushions  were 
burnt.    George  II.,  1727-1760.  ^ 

1727.  Act  disfranchising  the  Roman  Catholics.  Pillage 

Act.  November  10th,  Friday,  Oliver  Goldsmith 
born. 

1728.  There  being  a  great  scarcity  of  provisions  this  year 

in  the  city  of  Cork,  a  desperate  mob  arose,  and 
broke  open  the  cellars  of  Hugh  Millerd,  Esq.,  mayor 
of  Cork,  and  after  doing  a  great  deal  of  mischief, 
the  army  was  called  to  suppress  them,  when  a  few 
shots  were  fired:  Alice  Murphy,  who  was  looking 


4G4 


IRELA^-^D,  PAST  AND  PKESENT, 


A.  D. 

out  of  her  window,  was  unfortunately  shot  dead, 
and  not  one  guilty  person  hurt. 

1729.  Foundation  of  the  parliament-house  in  College  Green 
laid.  The  first  burial  with  linen  scarfs  at  Colonel 
Grove's  funeral,  in  Dublin,  October  15th.  The 
North  and  South  Chapels  in  Cork  built;  the  South 
^     one  was  afterwards  burnt. 

1*730.  The  dragon  blown  off  the  Exchange  of  Cork.  Jan- 
uary 2d,  Edmund  Burke  born. 

1731.  The  Dublin  Society  formed,  and  has  continued  to 

maintain  the  precedence  of  its  merit  unrivaled. 
This  year  there  were  1,309,768  Roman  Catiiolics, 
and  700,453  Protestants  in  Ireland.  Timotliv 
Croneen,  for  the  murder  and  robbery  of  Andrew  St. 
Leger,  Esq.,  and  his  wife,  Avas  hanged  quartered 
and  beheaded,  at  Gallows-green,  Cork,  the  25th 
day  of  January;  he  was  tried  by  a  special  com- 
mission, and  immediately  after  his  conviction,  was 
put  into  a  cart,  and  conveyed  to  the  place  of  ex- 
ecution; his  liead  was  afterwards  spiked  on  the 
South  Jail.  Joan  Condon,  for  the  same  murder, 
was  burnt  the  Saturday  following. 

1732.  Captain  Mooney  and  Captain  Maguire  executed  for 

enlisting  men  for  foreign  service. 
1734.    Further  stringent  act  against  Roman  Catholic  solic- 
itors. 

1738.  Carolan  the  Harper  died.    Gill-Abbey  Castle  fell 

down,  after  standing  980  years. 

1739.  The  River  Lee  was  frozen  up  toward  the  end  of  this 

year,  after  which  a  great  scarcity  followed;  so  that 
wheat  sold  the  ensuing  summer  for  £2  2s.  the  kil- 
derkin; and  in  two  years  after  was  sold  for  6s.  6d. 
the  kilderkin. 

1740.  The  summer  after  the  hard  frost,  there  was  a  large 

pit  dug  at  the  back  of  the  green  in  Shandon  church- 
yard, where  several  hundred  indigent  persons  were 


CHRONOLOGICAL  IIISTOIiY  OF  IRELAND.  4Gj 


A.  D. 

buried  for  want  of  money  to  purchase  graves  for 
themselves.    The  Kellymount  gang  outrages. 

1742.  First  ships  with  Irish  coals  arrive  in  Dublin,  from 

Newry. 

1743.  The  exports  from  Cork  were,  86,951  barrels  of  beef; 

19,256  barrels  of  pork;  83,844  cwt.  of  butter;  8,586 
tanned  hides;  37,509  raw  hides;  16,054  cwt.  of  tal- 
low; and  420  stone  of  wool. 

1744.  Lord  Cliesterfield  lord-lieutenant. 

1745.  The  young  Pretender  in  Scotland.    The  lord-lieuten- 

ant of  Ireland  issued  a  proclamation,  offering  a  re- 
ward of  £50,000  for  the  Pretender,  dead  or  alive, 
if  he  landed,  or  attempted  to  land  on  the  coast. 
Dean  Swift  died. 

1746.  Henry  Grattaii  born  in  Dublin.    The  battle  of  CuU- 

oden. 

1747.  Death  of  Archbishop  Hoadly.    The  town  of  Mullin- 

gar  in  the  county  of  W estmeath,  almost  consumed 
by  fire,  July  29th. 

1748.  The  jail  of  Kinsale  took  fire,  and  54  prisoners  (chiefly 

Spanish)  perished.    In  the  summer  of  this  year,  a 
shower  fell  in  and  about  the  town  of  Doneraile, 
of  a  yellowish   substance,   resembling  brimstone,, 
and  had  a  sulphurous  smell;  it  lay  but  thin  on  the 
ground,  and  soon  dissolved.  On  Monday,  June  18th,. 
about  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  liappeiaed  the 
most  violent  storm  of  hail  that  Avas  known  in  the 
memorv  of  man,   attended   with   lightning  and 
thunder,  which  held  above  a  quarter  of  an  hour;: 
several  hailstones  measured  five  inches  square,  and 
others  had  five  or  six  forks  ivom  the  main  body, 
of  an  inch  long  each,  which  broke  several  windows, 
and  did  other  considerable  damages  in  and  about 
Cork. 

1749.  Dublin  Society  incorporated.    Spire  erected  on  St. 

Patrick's  steeple,  Dublin.  A  general  peace  pro- 
claimed at  Dublin,  Feb.  17th.    Mr.  Charles  Lucas,. 


466  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

of  the  city  of  Dublin,  apothecary,  was  voted  an 
enemy  to  his  country,  by  the  Hon.  House  of  Com- 
mons and  to  be  committed  to  Newgate,  Monday, 
Oct.  16.  Dennis  Dunn  executed  near  Broad  Lane, 
Cork,  on  Saturday,  April  lolh,  for  enlisting  John 
M'Fall  to  be  a  sergeant  in  the  French  army.  Lucas 
stands  for  Dublin.  Threatened  with  prosecution, 
he  flies  to  England.  Contest  in  Parliament  about 
the  appropriation  of  surpluses. 

1750.  July,  John  Philpot  Curran  born.  A  bell  was  found 
in  Killarney  Lough,  the  circumference  whereof  is  as 
big  as  a  table  that  will  hold  eight  people  to  dine  at; 
the  clapper  was  quite  eaten  with  rust,  it  had  been 
so  long  in  the  water;  and  they  are  now  making  a 
steeple  for  it  in  Killarney.  Spanish  gold  prohibited 
in  Ireland,  October  10th. 

1753.  Bishop  Berkley  died.  Petition  of  the  Earl  of  Kil- 
dare.  Death  of  Morty  Oge  O'Sullivan,  the  smug- 
gler. 

1755.  Amethysts  discovered  at  Kerry,  in  Ireland.  Satur- 

day, Nov.  1st.  A  violent  shock  of  an  earthquake 
felt  in  Cork,  at  36  minutes  past  nine  in  the  morn- 
ing, but  no  damage  happened. 

1756.  Henry  Boyle  created  Earl  Shannon.    The  Grand 

Canal  commenced,  under  the  direction  of  Parlia- 
ment and  the  navigation  board;  but  so  little  pro- 
gress was  made  in  it,  that  the  legislature  held  out 
encouragement  to  private  subscribers;  and  in  1772, 
£100,000  were  subscribed  towards  the  finishing 
of  it,  which  was  completed  from  Dublin  to  Monas- 
tereven,  in  1786.-  A  vein  of  coals  was  discovered 
at  Ballintoy,  which  has  beep  wrought  with  such 
effect  as  to  supply  the  salt-works  then  at  Portrush 
and  Coleraine. 

1757.  Formation  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Committee. 
1,758.    The  statue  of  George  II.  in  brass  erected  in  Stephen's 

Green,  Dublin. 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  467 

A.  D. 

1759.  English  defeated  at  Wandewash  in  India  by  French 

under  MncGeogliegan,  of  Irish  Brigade.  Riots  in 
Dublin  on  the  i-nnior  of  a  contern{)iatcd  union. 

1760.  Thurst  (whose  real  name  was  O'Farreli)  a  Commodore 

in  the  service  of  France  landed  1000  mariners  at 
Carrickfergus  and  plundered  the  town^shortly 
after  his  vessels  were  captured  by  Captain  Elliot  at 
the  Isle  of  Man  and  himself  killed,  February  28th. 
George  III.  1760-1820. 

1761.  Charles  O'Brien,  Lord  Clare,  Marshal  of  France, 

died,  aged  66.  Insurrection  of  the  White-boys. 
Foundation  of  Poolbeg  Light  house,  Dublin,  laid. 
Finished  in  1768.  A  violent  shock  of  an  earth- 
quake at  Cork  and  Kin  sale,  March  31st. 

1762.  Insurrection  of  the  Oak-bovs.    A  dreadful  fire  in 

Cat  Lane,  Cork,  which  consumed  150  houses. 

1763.  May  9lh,  the  workmen  began  to  clear  the  channel  of 

the  harbor  of  Cork,  in  order  to  build  the  New 
Wall;  and  on  Monday  the  30lh,  several  hundred 
laborers  paraded  the  city  with  spades  and  shovels 
on  their  shoulders,  quitted  their  work  at  the  New 
Wall,  and  turned  out  lor  eight  pence  per  day,  being 
then  allowed  but  6d.  One  side  of  the  North  Main 
Street  flagged.  The  Red  house  W^alk  began  to  be 
improved.  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald  born.  Attacks 
on  the  pension  list.     Wolfe  Tone  born. 

1764.  Roman  Catholic  Relief  Bill  thrown  out.  Thomas 

Addis  Emmet  born. 

1765.  Grand  Canal  begun  for  making  a  navigation  from 

Dublin  on  the  south  side  to  the  Shannon;  incor- 
porated in  1772.  Passage  boats  plied  to  Salins  in 
1783;  to  Monastereven  1786. 

1766.  James,  Marquis  of  Kildare,  created  Duke  of  Leinster, 

Nov.  14th.  In  1754  the  return  of  houses  in  Dublin 
were  12,857.  Patrick  Redmond,  tailor,  was  ex- 
ecuted at  Gallows  Green,  the  10th  of  September, 
for  robbing  the  dwelling-house  of  John  Griftin. 


468  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PPwESENT. 

A,  D. 

Execution  of  Father  Sbeeliy  for  liis  opposition 
to  Britisli  tyranny.    Repeal  of  tlie  Stamji  Act. 

1767.  Lord  Townshend  lord-lieutenant.    Henry   Joy  M* 

Cracken  born,  October  8tb,  a  prodigious  flood 
and  spring-tide.  A  boat  plied  for  some  time  in 
the  North  Main  Street.  Thomas  Russell  born  at 
Bettsborougl),  in  the  county  Cork. 

1768.  Duration  of  Irish  parliaments  limited  for  eight  years. 

A  bill  passed  to  impose  a  tax  on  tea,  paper,  pain- 
ters' colors,  and  glass,  imported  into  America. 
Risingr  of  the  Steel-boys. 

1769.  Foundation  of  the  Hibernian  Hospilal,  for  the  re- 

ception of  soldiers'  children,  Phccnix  Park,  Dublin, 
laid.  Opened  in  1770.  The  foundation  stone  of 
the  royal  exchange  laid  by  Lord  Viscount  Town- 
shend, Lord-lieutenant  of  Ireland.  ,  It  was  designed 
b}'  Mr.  Cooley,and  opened  for  transacting  business 
in  1779.  The  expense  amounted  to  £40,000,  was 
defrayed  by  lottery-schemes  conducted  by  the 
merchants  of  Dublin.  , 

1770.  Foundation  laid  of  the  Hibernian  Marine  Nursery, 

Rogerson's  Quay,  Dublin.    Opened  1773. 

1771.  Extensive    emigration   to   America   from  IHster. 

Charles  Lucas  died. 

1773.  The  Irishnational  debt  amounts  to  £1,000,000.  The 

first  stone  of  the  Blue-Coat  Hospital,  in  Dublin, 
laid  by  the  lord-lieutenant. 

1774.  Stamp  Act  commenced  in    Ireland,  March  25th. 

Goldsmith  died. 

1775.  Continuation   of   the   White-boy   outrages.  Irish 

troops  nro  sent  to  America.  Battle  of  Lexington, 
April  20th.  Daniel  O'Connell  born.  Nov.  13th, 
Montreal  surrenders  to  General  Montgomery. 

1776.  Edmund  Sheehy  the  Irish  patriot,  tried,  hanged. 
1778.    France  forms  an  alliance  with  the  United  States. 

March  26th,  first  "Irish  Volunteer"  Company  en- 
rolled.   Roman  Catholics  first  permitted  to  take 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


469 


A.  D. 

long  leases;  several  of  them  attended  at  the  city 
court-house,  and  testified  tlieir  allegiance,  Sept. 
29th.  ♦ 
1779,  Armed  associations  (to  tlie  number  of  80,000)  formed 
in  every  part  of  Ireland,  under  the  denomination 
of  Volunteers;  which  were  clothed,  armed,  and 
disciplined  at  their  own  private  expense,  for  the 
purpose  of  repelling  any  hostile  attempt  from  a 
foreign  enemy,  and  of  preserving  tranquility  and  a 
due  observance  of  the  laws  witiiin  the  kin2;dom. 
By  the  spirited  applications  of  these  associations, 
Poyning^s  law,  and  all  the  obnoxious  acts  declaring 
the  supremacy  of  England  over  this  kingdom,  were 
repealed,  and  the  Crown  of  Ireland  rendered 
independent  of  that  of  Great  Britain.  The  first 
fancy  ball  introduced  in  the  city  of  Coik  by  Ladv 
.Fitzgerald,  Jan,  1st.  June  4th,  the  city  of  Cork 
Avas  alarmed  with  the  news  of  a  French  fleet  havino- 
appeared  off  Bantry  Bay;  drums  instantly  began 
to  beat  to  arms  through  every  quarter  of  the  city; 
the  volunteers  assembled  on  the  Mall;  the  True- 
Blue  Society  took  charge  of  the  •main-guard,  the 
Highlanders  quitted  it  and  joined  the  remaining 
part  of  the  regiment  in  the  old  barrack.  Palms 
Westrop,  Esq.,  mayor  of  Cork,  summoned  a  council 
to  consider  what  was  necessary  to  be  done  on  such 
an  alarming  occasion.  Several  Roman  Catholics 
took  up  arms,  offered  their  assistance  to  the  volun- 
teers, and  distinguished  themselves  as  loyal  sub- 
jects in  the  defense  of  their  country.  About  ten  at 
night,  the  Highland  regiment  marched  from  the 
old  barrack  toward  Bandon;  they  were  met  express 
on  the  road,  countermanded,  and  returned  next 
morning;  upon  tlie.  whole,  it  appeared  to  be  an 
English  fleet  liovering  off  Cnpe  Clenr,  who,  on 
firing  several  guns  in  honor  of  his  niajesty's  birth- 
day, gave  rise  to  the  alarm  and  expected  invasion. 


470  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PliESENT. 

A.  D. 

September  24th,  anotlier  alarm  took  place;  the 
army  in  camp  at  Ballinrea  struck  their  leiits, 
crossed  the  country  near  Kinsale,  and  returned  tlie 
same  evening;  it  proved  to  be  the  homeward-bound 
Jamaica  fleet  which  appeared  on  the  coast,  that  oc- 
casioned this  alarm.  Agitation  in  favor  of  freedom 
of  trade.  Efforts  in  the  Enojlish  Parliament  to 
open  Irish  ti*ade.  Spain  declares  war  against  Eng- 
land.   Ireland  admitted  to  a  free  trade. 

1780.  Woolen  goods  first  exported  from  Ireland  to  a  for- 

eign market.  March  20th,  Miles  Byrne  born  at 
Monaseed,  county  Wexford.  May  28th,  Tliomas 
Moore,  the  Poet,  born  in  Dublin.  Dec.  2.3d. 
Frederick  Howard,  Earle  of  Carlisle,  landed  and 
sworn  Lord-lieutenant. 

1781.  The  foundation  of  the  Custom  House  of  Dublin  laid, 

and  built  from  the  designs  of  James  Grandon. 
Shrove-Tuesday,  February  27th,  there  was  a  violent 
hurricane  in  the  city  of  Cork.  March  18th,  the 
3d,  19th,  and  30th  regiments  of  foot  embarked  at 
MonkstoAvn  for  America.  The  Volunteers  of  Ire- 
land received  the  thanks  of  both  Houses  of  Parlia- 
ment. Ajjitation  for  legislative  independence. 
Wall  of  Dublin,  laid. 

1782.  Numerous  meeting  of  the  Ulster  Volunteer  Dele- 

gates held  at  Dungannon,  who  published  a  Declara- 
tion of  Irish  Rights,  Feb.  15th.  Parliament  of 
Iff  Innd  voted  its  independence,  and  made  a  declara- 
tion  of  constitutional  rights,  August  16th.  British 
parliament  repealed  the  6th  George  I.,  whereby  it 
renounced  legislation  for  Ireland,  June  20th.  Henry 
Grattan,  Esq.,  made  a  speech  in  the  Irish  House  of 
Commons  relative  to  the  rights  and  independence 
of  Trelanrl;  for  which  he  was  voted  £50,000  by 
Parliament.  Further  Roman  Catholic  Relief  Act. 
Meetin<r  of  the  volunteers  at  Dungannon.  Feb- 
ruarv  15tb,  "  the  Iri^h  Volunteers*'  at  Dungannon 


CHRO^sOLOGICAL  IIISTOKY  OF  IRELAND.  471 


resolved  unanimously  "  That  the  claim  of  anybody 
of  men  other  than  the'King,  Lords,  and  Commons 
of  Ireland,  to  make  laws  to  bind  this  kingdom,  is 
unconstitutional,  illegal,  and  a  grievance."  Resolu- 
tion of  the  Grand  Jury  of  the  county  Cork — "  That 
the  claim  of  the  British  Parliament  to  bind  this 
kingdom  by  laws  is  a  claim  disgraceful  and  unpro- 
ductive; disgraceful  to  us  because  it  is  an  infringe- 
ment of  our  constitution;  unproductive  to  Great 
Brilian  because  the  exercise  of  it  will  not  be  sub- 
mitted to  by  the  people  of  Ireland."  Declaration 
of  Irish  right  moved  by  Henry  Grattan  in  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons  and  carried  unanimously,  and 
Ireland's  independence  won — for  a  time! — 

1783.  The  first  dawn  of  Irish  liberty  broke  out  in  1779; 

Ireland  obtained  lier  legislatire  independence,  with 
the  consent  of  the  Britisli  Senate,  the  16th  day  of 
April.  Declaratory  Act.  Peace  of  Versailles. 
Coalition  Ministry  formed  between  Fox  and  Lord 
North.  Agitation  for  parliamentary  reform.  The 
Volunteer  National  Convention.  Rejection  of 
Flood's  Reform  Bill.  Fall  of  the  Coalition  ministry. 
Pitt  becomes  prime-minister.  February  10th, 
Grand  National  Convention  of  volunteers  assembled 
at  the  Royal  Exchange.  Sept.  3d,  England  ac- 
knowledged the  Independence  of  the  United  States. 
Nov.  25th,  Evacuation  of  New  York  by  the  British 
army. 

1784.  Clodagh  Castle,  now  in  ruins,  said  to  liave  been  built 

by  the  Mac-Swineys,  who  were  anciently  famous 
for  Irish  hospitality.  On  the  west  side  of  the  road 
near  Dunusky  there  was  a  stone  set  up  (which  now 
lies  in  a  ditch),  siornifying  to  all  persons,  to  repair 
to  the  house  of  Edmond  MacSwiney  for  entertain- 
ment. December  18th,  At  Heiro  (one  of  the  Canary 
Isles  subject  to  Spain)  thirty-seven  convicts  from 
Ireland  were  landed  out  of  the  ship  I>ubU?iy  for 


472  IKELAND,  PAST  A]^D  PllESENT. 

A.  D. 

mutiny;  they  were  all  immediately  put  to  the 
sword,  by  order'of  the  governor,  on  an  idea  that 
the  plague  raged  among  them. 

1785.  First  air-balloon  in  Ireland  ascended  from  Ranelaoh 

Gardens,  Dublin,  Jan.  19th.  On  Callan  Mountain 
there  is  a  large  stone  or  monument,  with  an  in- 
scription in  Ogham  characters,  denoting  it  to  be 
the  burial-place  of  the  famous  Conan,  one  of  the 
Connaught  kniglits  who  fell  in  battle;  the  stone  is 
eleven  feet  six  inches  long,  tliree  feet  broad,  and 
one  foot  thick;  it  lies  on  an  eminence  above  a  small 
lake  facing  the  south,  on  a  soft  flat  quarry,  about 
eight  miles  from  Ennis;  it  was  discovered  this  year 
by  the  right  honorable  W.  B.  Conyngham  in  com- 
pany with  Mr.  O'Flanagan;  the  latter  gentleman 
being  sent  from  Dublin  for  that  purpose,  by  the 
Royal  Irish  Academy.  The  merchants  of  the  city 
of  Cork  fitted  out  a  vessel  well  supplied  with 
bread,  water,  beef,  etc.,  to  cruise  off  Cape  Clear, 
for  the  jDurpose  of  relieving  any  vessels  which  the 
long  continuance  of  easterly  winds  might  keej)  at 
sea,  April  30th.  Orde's  commercial  resolutions. 
Jealous  opposition  of  the  English  manufacturers. 
James  Duane,  first  Irish-American  Mayor  of  New 
York  installed.  Rise  of  the  Peep-o'-day  Boys  and 
Defenders.  William  AVhipple  died.  John  Adams, 
the  first  ambassador  from  the  United  States,  re- 
ceived at  the  Court  of  St.  James.  Orde's  Bill 
abandoned.    Aijitation  for  reform. 

1786.  Foundation  of  the  New  Four  Courts  and  Public 

Ofiices,  Dublin,  laid.  Royal  Irish  Academy  at 
Dublin,  incorporated  Januarj'^  28th.  A  Police  es- 
tablished at  Dublin,  and  other  parts  of  Ireland. 
The  Cork  Society  (one  of  the  most  useful  charities 
in  the  city  of  Cork)  commenced  lending  three 
guineas  instead  of  two,  interest  free,  once  a  fort- 
night, to  fifteen  poor  tradesmen.    George  Robert 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


473 


AD. 

Fitzgerald,  the  notorious  duelist,  executed  for  the 
murder  of  Patrick  Randal  MacDonald. 

1787.  Debates  on  the  tithe  question. 

1788.  March  27th,  A  large  bog  of  1,500  acres,  lying  be- 

tween Dundruin  and  Cashel,  in  the  county  of 
Tipperary,  began  to  be  agitated  in  an  extraordinary 
manner.  The  rumbling  noise  from  the  bog  gave 
the  alarm;  and  on  the  30th  it  burst,  and  a  kind  of 
lava  issued  from  it,  wJiicli  took  its  direction  toward 
Ballygriffin  and  Golden,  overspreading  and  laying 
waste  a  tract  of  fine  fertile  land,  belonging  to 
John  Hyde,  Esq.,  everything  that  opposed  its  course 
was  buried  in  ruins.  July  25th,  The  foundation- 
stone  of  St.  Patrick's  Bridge  laid.  Mr.  Michael 
Shanahan,  architect  and  contractor.  The  new 
Meat,  Fish,  Poultry,  and  Vegetable  Markets,  the 
most  convenient  of  their  kind  in  Europe,  opened 
in  the  city  of  Cork,  August  1st. 

1789.  The  Regency  question  in  the  Irish  Parliament.  July 

8th,  His  majesty's  royal  mail-coach  (from  Dublin 
to  Cork)  arrived  this  day  for  the  first  time,  with  his 
majesty's  mail.  Buck  Whaley  arrived  in  Dublin 
from  his  journey  to  Jerusalem,  by  which  he  gained 
a  wager  of  £20,000.  September  29th,  The  quay- 
stone  of. the  last  arch  of  the  'New  Bridge  was  laid 
by  Lord  Dono  ugh  more,  in  the  city  of  Cork,  at 
which  time  it  got  the  name  of  St.  Patrick's  Bridge. 
Jan.  17th,  The  city  of  Cork  exhibited  a  melancholy 
spectacle.  A  great  fall  of  snow  for  some  days, 
dissolved  by  a  heavy  fall  of  rain  which  continued 
twenty-four  hours,  swelled  the  river  beyond  any- 
thing hitherto  known;  it  rushed  through  every 
avenue  leading  into  the  city,  and  by  four  o'clock 
in  the  evening  all  the  flat  part  thereof  was  covered; 
it  contmued  to  rise  until  nine  o'clock. 

1790.  March  20th,  A  very  curious  discovery  in  natural 

history  took  place  at  Black  well.    Mr.  Perry,  the 


474 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PllESENT. 


sliip-builder,  planned  and  made  one  of  the  most  ex- 
tensive wet  docks  in  the  kingdom;  for  whicli  great 
undertakin'g  he  appropriated  seven  acres  of  land. 
In  digging  the  ground,  regular  strata  of  sand,  clay, 
etc.,  were  found,  wliich  afforded  materials  for 
bricks;  and  at  the  depth  of  12  or  14  feet  from  the 
surface,  under  the  above  stivata,  numbers  of  very 
large  trees  were  discovered;  and  what  is  most  re- 
markable, a  hazel -tuit  hedge,  with  considerable 
quantities  of  nuts  as  they  grew  on  the  trees.  Kov. 
lOlh,  Father  Matthew  born. 

1791.  An  Apothecaries'  Ilall  established  at  Dublin.  Feb- 

ruary 11th,  First  meeting  of  the  "  United  Irish- 
men." March  6tli,  Most  Rev.  John  MacIIale, 
Archbishop  of  Tuam,  born  at  Tubarnavine,  in  the 
parish  of  Adergoole,  and  diocese  of  Killala,  county 
Mayo.  Died  Nov.  7th,  1881.  July  5th,  Banquet 
at  Belfast,  to  celebrate  the  French  Revolution. 
Oct.  26th,  Formation  of  Society  of  United  Irish- 
'  men.    Nov.    7th,  New   Custom   House,  Dublin, 

opened  for  business.  Nov.  9th,  First  meeting  of 
the  Dublin  Society  of  United  Irishmen,  at  the 
Eagle  Tavern,  Eustace  street;  Chairman,  the  Hon- 
orable Simeon  Butler.  Henry  Flood  died.  Agita- 
tion for  Roman  Catholic  emancipation.  Formation 
of  the  Society  of  the  United  Irishmen. 

1792.  Roman  Catholic  Relief  Act.    Accidental  burning  of 

the  House  of  Commons.  Meeting  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Convention.  Jan.  4th,  Tiie  Xorthern 
Star,  the  organ  of  the  United  Irishmen,  first 
published.  May  13th,  Pope  Pius  IX.  born.  Died 
Feb.  7th,  1878.  Nov.  18th,  Banquet  of  Irish, 
Enjzlish,  and  Scotch  in  Paris,  to  celebrate  the  vic- 
tories of  the  Republicans,  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald 
present.  The  Catholic  Relief  Bill  was  passed  in 
the  Irish  Parliament.    Dec.  14th,  Leaders  of  the 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  475 

A.  D. 

United  Irishmen  publish  a  proclamation  exhorting 
the  Volunteers  to  resume  tbeir  arms. 

1793.  Petition  of  the  Roman  Catliolics  presented  to  the 

king.  Increase  of  Defenderism,  Activity  of  the 
Ui^ited  Irishmen.  Flight  of  Napper  Tandy.  Pro- 
secution of  Hamilton  Rowan  and  imprisonment  of 
Simon  Butler  and  Oliver  Bond.  The  Duke  of 
Portland  and  some  of  the  old  Wliigs  join  the  min- 
istry. Arrest  of  Jackson.  March  lltli,  The  "  Irish 
Volunteers"  suppressed  by  proclamation.  The 
society  is  reconstructed  as  a  secret  association. 
Catholic  Relief  Bill  became  law.  Nov.  National 
Convention  of  Volunteers  assemble  in  Royal  Ex- 
change, Dublin. 

1794.  May 
2d,  Archibald  Hamilton  Rowan  escaped  fiom 
prison.  May  4th,  Meeting  of  the  United  Irishmen 
in  the  Tailor's  Hall,  Dublin,  dispersed  and  their 
papers  seized. 

1795.  Arrival  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  as  Viceroy.  Grattan's 

bill  for  complete  emancipation  of  tlie  Roman 
Catholics.  Recall  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam.  Trial  and 
death  of  Jackson.  Rejection  of  Grattan's  Bill. 
April  30th,  Rev.  W.  Jackson,  having  taken  poison 
in  order  to  avoid  a  public  execution,  died  in  the 
dock  just  as  the  judge  was  proceeding  to  pass  sen- 
tence on  him  for  higli  treason.  Sept  21st,  Battle 
of  the  Diamond  between  Peep-o-day  boys  and  De- 
fenders. To  commemorate  this  conflict  the  First 
Orange  Lodge  in  Ireland  formed  at  Loughnagall. 
Dec.  21st,  Meeting  of  the  magistrates  of  the  county 
of  Armagh  to  protest  against  the  illegal  violence 
which  the  Catholics  of  that  county  were  subjected 
to.    Orange  clubs  etc.,  formed. 

1796.  The  Insurrection  Act.    Extension  of  the  United 

Irishmen  to  Leinster.  French  expedition  to  Ban- 
try.  Jan.  1st,  Theobald  Wolfe  Tone  sailed  from  New 


476  IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PllESEXT. 

A.  D. 

York  for  Paris  to  seek  French"  aid  for  Ireland. 
Feb.  9th,  William  Carleton,  the  Irish  Kovelist, 
born.  March  7th,  Tite  Press,  "  United  Irish"  organ 
seized,  and  its  office  destroyed  by  government. 
Dec.  16tli,  French  Expedition,  with  W»olfe  Tone  on 
board  sailed  for  Ireland,  from  Brest.  Dec  24th, 
French  fleet  arrive  in  Bantry  Bay.  The  Korthem 
Star,  organ  of  the  United  Irishmen,  suppressed  by 
militar}'  violence. 

1797  Jan.  31st,  Pitt  introduced  the  "  Union"  resolutions 
into  the  English  parliament.  Lord  Camden's  Pro- 
clamation asjainst  the  United  Irishmen.  Arthur 
O'Connor  is  arrested,  and  released  on  bail.  Lord 
Moira  attacks  the  government  in  the  English  House 
of  Lords.  Martial  law  is  Ulster.  Gi  attan's  Re- 
form Bill  rejected.  Secession  of  the  opposition. 
Increase  of  the  United  Irishmen.  Mutiny  at  the 
Nore  and  Spithead.  Oct.  14th,  Execution  of 
William  Orr  at  Carrickfergus. 

1798.  Feb,  Killeveny  Chapel,  Wexford,  burned  by  the 
military.  March  12th,  Oliver  Bond  and  fourteen 
United  Irish  Delegates  ai  rested  in  the  house  of 
Oliver  Bond.  March  30th,  Martial  law  for  Ireland 
proclaimed.  April  9th,  Thomas  Addis  Emmet  im- 
prisoned at  Fort  George,  Scotland.  April  27th, 
Sir  Ralph  Abercrombie,  disgusted  with  the  conduct 
of  the  troops  in  Ireland,  resigned  the  command  of 
■  the  Army.  May  19th,  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald 
arrested  and  mortally  wounded,  in  a  house  in 
Thomas  street,  by  Major  Sirr,  assisted  ly  Majors 
Swan  and  Rvan.  June  3d,  He  died  in  prison  of 
his  wounds.  May,  Henry  and  John  Sheares  ar- 
rested. May,  Samuel  Neilson  arrested.  May  24th, 
The  "LTnited  Irishmen"  took  the  town  of  Prosper- 
ous. Carlow  taken  by  the  insurgents.  May  27th, 
Battle  of  Oulart  Hill,  county  Wexford.  May  28th, 
United   Irish   capture   Enniscorthy.    May  30th, 


CHKONOLOGICAL  IIISTOKY  OF  IRELAIS'D. 


477 


A.  D. 

1798  United  Irish  win  the  Battle  at  Tlirce  Rocks, 
county  Wexford.  May  31st,  Massacre  at  the  Ciir- 
ragh  of  Kildare  of  the  Irish,  after  tliey  liad  sur- 
rendered and  laid  down  their  arms.  Martial  law 
in  Leinster.  O'Connor  is  arrested  at  Margate. 
June  1st,  Ketownbarry  taken  by  the  insurgents. 
Insurrection  Bill  passed.  June  4th,  English  under 
Colonel  Walpole  defeated,  and  the  Colonel  slain 
by  Wexford  Insurgents.  June  5th,  Battle  of  Kew 
Ross.  June  'Zth,  The  Battle  of  Antrim;  United 
Irish  led  by  Henry  Joy  McCracken.  June  8th, 
Rev.  James  Quigly  executed.  June  9th,  Battle  of 
Arklow,  and  death  of  Father  Murphy.  June  13th, 
Dr.  Esmonde  hung  on  Carlisle  Bridge,  Dublin. 
June  20Lh,  Battle  of  Fook's  Mill.  United  Irish 
victorious.  June  21st,  Battle  of  Vinegar  Hill;  de- 
feat of  the  United  Irishmen.  June  26th,  Massacre 
of  rebels  at  Carlow.  June  27th,  Bagenal  Harvey, 
leader  of  the  rebels,  hanged.  June  2Sth,  John  H. 
Colclough  hanged.  July  9th,  Edmund  Burke  died. 
July  14th,  Henry  and  John  Sheares  executed. 
Oct.  11th,  French  Expedition  under  Hardy  de- 
stroyed at  Loch  Swilly.  Oct.  11th,  AVolfe  Tone 
captured.  July  15  th,  Henry  Joy  M'Cracken, 
United  Irish  leader,  and  commander  at  the  battle 
of  Antrim,  executed.  July  28th,  William  Michael 
Byrne,  executed.  August  23d,  French  expedition 
under  Humbert  landed  at  Ki.lala.  August  26th, 
Battle  of  Castlebar,  flight  of  the  English.  Sept. 
7th,  Oliver  Bond  died  in  Xewgate  (foul  play  sus- 
pected). Sept.  8th,  Surrender  of  Humbert  at  the 
battle  of  Ballinamuck.  Sept.  9th,  Thomas  Russell 
arrested  by  Major  Sirr.  Sept.  24th,  Bartholomew 
Teeling,  leader  of  the  United  Irishmen  executed. 
Sept.  30th,  Matthew  Tone  (the  brother  of  Wolfe 
Tone)  executed.  Oct.  6th,  Insurrection  Bill  passed. 
Oct.  27th,  Last  French  invasion  of  Ireland.  Nov. 


478 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


A.  D. 

I7th,  Wolfe  Tone  died  in  prison.  Xov.  24th, 
Napper  Tandy  arrested  on  neutral  ground  by  order 
of  the  Britisli  Consul, 

1799.  Dec.  14th,  Proposal  of  the  Union.    Opposition  to 

the  Union.  Defeat  of  the  government.  The 
English  Parliament  agree  to  Pitt's  resolutions  on 
the  Union.  Jan.  13th.  O'Connell's  first  public 
speech  against  the  Union  in  Dublin.  Jan.  15th, 
Last  session  of  the  Irish  Parliament  opened.  Feb. 
6th,  The  Act  of  Union  carried  by  a  purchased 
majority  of  43  votes  in  the  Commons,  and  49  in  the 
Lords. 

1800.  April  2d,  Last  session  of  the  Irish  Parliament  closed. 

1801.  Jan  1st,  The  Act  of    Union"  between  England  and 

Ireland  came  into  operation.  Jan.  25th,  Daniel 
Maclise  born. 

1802.  Jan,  10th,  Father  O'Leary  died.    Jan  2Sth,  Lord 

Clare  (the  Fitzgibbon  of  '98)  died. 

1803.  Feb.  10th,  Colonel  Despard  executed.    July  23t1, 

Emmet's  Insurrection.  Sept.  20th,  Robert  Em- 
met hanged.  William  Smith  O'Brien  born.  Dec. 
12th,  Gerald  Griffin  born. 

1806.  Barry,  the  painter  died.  Nov.  28th,  Bedford  Asylum 
for  poor  children  founded  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford 
in  Brunswick  street,  Dublin. 

1808.    Irish  Bishops  resolve  against  the  Veto. 

1810.  July  13th,  First  steam  vessel  (the  jSirhis)  arrived  in 

Cork  harbor  from  America. 

1811.  Feb.  12th,  Proclamation  to  put  down  Catholic  Com- 

mittee.   Daniel  Maclise  the  painter,  born  in  Cork. 

1812.  Ai^'gnst  19th,  British  frigate  Guerriere  surrenders  to 

United  Slates  frigate  Constitution.  Oct.  25th, 
British  frigate  Macedonian  surrenders  to  Com. 
Decatur.  Dec.  26th,  Capture  of  the  British  frigate 
Java,  by  the  American  frigate  Coiistitution. 

1813.  Feb.  Mr.  Grattan's  motion  in  theHouseof  Commons 


CHROT^OLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND. 


479 


A.  D. 


to  take  into  consideration  the  laws  affecting 
Catholics. 

1816.  July  Vth,  Richard  Brinsley  Sheridan  died.  Sept. 

IStli,  Steam  Packets  first  sailed  from  Dublin. 

1817.  Jan.  5th,  English  and  Irish  Exchequers  consolidated. 

1819.  March  9th,  Mr.  Grattan  in  the  English  House  of 

Commons,  moved  for  a  committee  of  the  whole 
house  on  the  Catholic  question.  July  13th,  First 
steam  vessel  arrived  at  Cork  from  America  on  this 
day. 

1820.  Feb.  5th.  Dr.  Drennan,  poet  of  the.United  Irishmen, 

author  of  ''The  Wake  of  AYilliam  Orr,"  etc..  died. 
May  14th,  Henry  Grattan  died. 

1821.  Aug.  Visit  to  Ireland  of  George  IV. 

1822.  Orange  riot  in  the  Theatre  Royal,  Dublin — attack 

on  the  Lord-Lieutenant. 
1825.    Dublin  lighted  with  gas. 

1827.  Thomas  Addis  Emmet  died  in  New  York. 

1828.  O'Connell  declared  elected  for  Clare. 

1829.  J.  J.  Callanan,  poet,  died,  aged  thirty-four  years. 

Feb.  4th,  Bill  for  the  suppression  of  the  Catholic 
Association  received  Royal  Assent.  March  5th, 
Act  for  the  suppression  of  the  CathoUc  Association 
passed  both  Houses.  March  10th,  Emancipation 
Bill  read  first  time  in  House  of  Commons.  April 
Emancipation  Bill  received  Royal  Assent.  May 
15th,  O'Connell  entered  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  refused  to  take  the  Oaths, 

First  stone  of  the  Jesuit's  Church,  Dublin,  laid. 

1830.  Dec.    29th,   Volunteer    Society    and  Anti-Union 

Society  suppresssed  by  Proclamation. 

1831.  True  bills  under  the  "  Alorerine  Act'*  found  against 

O'Coimell  for  allesced  illec^al  meetinfrs  in  Dublin. 
Dr.  Whately  supporter  of  Irish  National  school 
system  becomes  Abp.  of  Dublin. 

1832.  Irish  Reform  Bill  passed. 


4S0  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESEXT. 

A.  D. 

1834.  Repeal  question  intj-odnced  into  the  House  of  Com- 
mons by  O'Connell.  Dec  17th,  Dublin  and  Kings- 
town Railway,  being  the  first  in  Ireland,  opened  f(;r 
traffic. 

1836.  August  18th,  Reynolds,  the  '98  informer,  died. 

1837.  Jan.  2d,  An  explosion  of  gunpower  killed  many 

people  in  Limerick. 

1838.  Poor  laws  introduced. 

1839.  Jan.  7th.  An  awful  and  destructive  tempest  visited 
Limerick,  when  the  river  Shannon  overflowed  and 
bursts  its  banks,  and  laid  all  the  lowlands  under 
about  fifteen  feet  of  water  in  Pallaskenry,  and  on 
both  sides  of  the  river  Maiguc.  Repeal  Associa- 
tion founded. 

1840.  June  12th,  Gerald  Griffin  died. 

1841.  Sept.  25th,  First  election  of  reformed  Municipal 

Council  of  Dublin.  Daniel  O'Connell,  M.  P., 
elected  Lord  Ma3'or. 

1842.  First  number  of  the  Dublin  Nation^  published. 

1843.  jMonster  meeting  at  Mullaghraast.    Repeal  banquet 

to  O'Connell  and  other  leading  Repealers,  at  New- 
castle, county  Limerick.  Monster  meeting  at  the 
Curragh,  70,000  present.  Monster  Repeal  meeting 
at  Trim,  20,000  present.  Monster  Repeal  meeting 
at  Clones,  50,000  present.  Repeal  meeting  at  Charle- 
ville,  300,000  present.  Repeal  meeting  at  Cork, 
500,000  present.  Great  monster  meeting  near 
Thurles,  county  Tipperary.  June  4th,  Monster 
meeting  at  Drogheda.  June  8th,  Monster  meeting 
at  Kilkenny.  June  15th,  Monster  meeting  at  Clare. 
Monster  meeting  at  Mallow.  June  25th,  Monster 
meeting  at  Galway.  Oct.  rth.  Monster  Repeal 
meeting  at  Clontarf  suppressed.  Conciliation  Hall 
opened,  and  the  adhesion  of  William  Smith  O'Brien 
announced.  Oct.  8th,  Great  display  of  military 
force  at  Clontarf  to  effect  the  massacre  plotted  by 
the  Government.    The  people  saved  by  the  exer- 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAl^D. 


481 


AD.  .  . 

1843.  tions  of  tlie  Repeal  leaders  in  preventing  their  ar- 

rival on  the  ground.    Oct.    14th,  Informations 
sworn  against  O'Cunnell,  Duffy  and  others.  Nov. 
•  Repeal  Trials  begun. 

1844.  Formation  of  Cork  City  Repeal  Club.    Jan.  15th, 

Trial  of  O'Connell  and  other  Repealers  in  Dublin. 
They  are  found  guiUy.  Sept.  4th,  Sentence  against 
Repeal  State  Prisoneis  reversed  in  the  House  of 
Lords.  Sept.  5th,  O'Connell  and  Repeal  prisoners 
liberated.  March  23d,  O'Connell  presented  a 
petition  against  the  Union  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons. Dec.  18th,  Appointment  of  new  commis- 
sioners of  Charitable  bequests.  Rank  of  the  R.  C. 
Bishops  recognized. 

1845.  Sept.  16th,  Thomas  Davis  Died.    Sept.  23d,  Irish 

National  Educational  Society  incorporated. 

1846.  April  30th.  Committal  of  William  Smilh  O'Brien  tp 

the  custody  of  the  Sergeant-at-arms  for  contempt 
in  not  obeying  an  order  of  the  House  of  Commons 
to  attend  a  committee.  July  29th,  William  Smith 
O'Brien  and  the  Young  Ireland,  or  Physical  force 
Party  secede  from  the  Repeal  Association.  August 
6th,  The  population  of  Ireland  at  this  time  was 
over  nine  millions. 

1847.  Jan.  13th,  Opening  of  the  Irish  Confederation,  com- 

posed of  secessionists  from  the  Repeal  Association. 
Feb.  8th,  O'Connell's  last  speech  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  1847-8.  Failure  of  the  potato  crop 
throuiihout  Ireland.  March  28th,  The  American 
ship-of-war  Jcmiestoicn^  sailed  from  Boston  with 
provisions  for  the  starving  Irish.  May  15th,  Death 
of  O'Connell  at  Genoa  on  his  way  to  Rome  in  his 
73d  year,  he  bequeathed  his  heart  to  Rome. 
August  5th,  O'Connell's  remains  entombed  at 
Glasncvin.  Fearful  famine  in  Ireland. 
1R48.  Numerous  deaths  from  starvation  in  Ireland  reported 
.   an  every  day  occurrence.    Funeral  service  of  Daniel 


483  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D.  ' 

1848.  O'Connell  in  Paris.  Treason  Felony  Vy,'  Cnx''o- 
duced.  April  3d,  lyeputa- 
tion  from  the  Irisli  people,  Smith  O'Brien, 
Meagher,  O'Gorman,  etc.,  to  Lamanine,  and  ofher 
members  of  the  provincial  Government  at  Paris. 
April  4th,  Great  meeting  of  Young  Irelanders  at 
Dublin.    May  13th,  Arrest  of  Mitchel,  Editor  of 

^  the  United  Irishmen.  May  26th,  Mitchel  found 
guilty  and  sentenced  to  transportation  for  14 
years.  July  8th,  Arrest  of  Gavau  Duffy,  Martin, 
Meagher,  Doheny,  etc.,  for  felonons  writings  and 
speeches,  etc.  July  26th,  Confederate  clubs  pro- 
hibited. The  Habeas  Corpus  Act  suspended. 
July  20th,  O'Brien's  Rebellion  suppressed.  August 
5th,  Arrest  of  Smith  O'Brien  at  Thnrles.  lie  is 
conveyed  to  Kilmainham  Gaol,  Dublin.  August 
12th,  Arrest  of  Meagher,  O'Donoghue,  etc.  August 
14th,  Martin  sentenced  to  transportation.  Sept. 
Encumbered  estates  act  passed.  Oct.  Dth,  Smith 
O'Brien,  Meagher  and  the  other  confederates 
tried  and  sentenced  to  death. 

1849.  Jan.  16th,  The  Irish  court  of  Queen's  Bench  gives 

judgment  on  writs  of  error  sued  out  by  the  prison- 
ers convicted  of  high  treason  and  confirms  the 
judgment  of  the  court  below.  July  9th,  O'Brien, 
Meaglier,  McManus,  and  Donoghue  transported. 
Jan.  Bishop  Maginn  died.  Feb.  7th,  Charles  Gavan 
Duffy  tried  for  High  Treason.  April  14th,  Gavan 
Duffy  released  on  bail.  July  12th,  Orange  and 
Catholic  affray  at  Dollys  Brae.  August  5th,  Queen 
Victoria  visits  Ireland  and  hoi  her  court  at 
Dublin  Castle.  Oct.  24th,  First  cent  under  the 
encumbered  estates  act  held  in  Dublin. 

1850.  May  5th,  Great  Tenant  Right  Meeting  at  Millstreet. 

August  15th,  Queen's  university  in  Ireland  estab- 
^  lished.    August  22d,  A  synod  of  the  archbishops 

and  bisliops  of  Ireland,  presided  over  by  Arch- 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  483 

A.  D. 

1850.  bisliop  Cullen,  was  held  in  Thurles.  It  condemned 
the  Queen's  colleges  and  resolved  on  founding  rv 
Roman  Catholic  University.  Dec.  29th,  James 
Fiiuan  Lalor  died. 

1851.  May  5th,  Roman  Catholic  university  originated  and 

large  sums  subscribed.  May  26th,  Richard  Lalor 
Shiel  died.  July,  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill  passed. 
August  1st,  Midland  Great  Western  Rilihvay 
opened.  August  19th,  Great  meeting  in  the 
Rotunda,  Dublin,  to  protest  against  the  Ecclesias- 
tical Titles  Bill.  August,  The  Irish  Tenant  League 
Association  formed. 

1852.  April  28th  Great  meeting  of  Catholics  in  Dublin  to 

protest  against  the  Ecclesiastical  Titles  Bill.  May 
24th,  Meagher  escapes  fi-om  Van  Diemens  Land 
and  arrives  at  New  York.  June  1st,  Electric 
telegraph  laid  down  between  Holyhead  and  Dub^ 
lin.  June  10th,  Cork  National  Exhibition,  June 
24th,  Irish  Industrial  Exhibition  set  on  foot.  Mr. 
Darfau  a  railway  contractor  contributes  towards  it 
£26,000.  June  29th,  Henry  Clay  died  in  Washing- 
ton. The  Right  Rev.  Doctor  Cullen  enthroned 
Archbishop  of  Dublin.  July  3d,  Tenant-Right 
demonstrations  dispersed  by  the  magistrates.  Feb. 
5th,  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  elected  member  for  New 
Ross.  July  14tii,  Fierce  religious  riots  at  Belfast. 
July  22d,  Fatal  election  riots  at  the  6  mile  Bridge. 
Sept.  2d,  Cork  Industrial  Exhibition  closed.  Sept. 
10th,  Irish  members  of  parliament  found  a  religious 
equality  association.  Sept.  16th,  Thomas  Moore 
died.  Dec,  27th,  Great  storm  in  Dublin,  which 
levelled  several  houses,  tore  up  trees,  and  did  con- 
siderable damage  to  house  property  in  the  city  and 
suburbs. 

1853.  May,  Income  tax  extended  to  Ireland.    May  12th, 

Dublin  Exhibition  opens.  Oct.  5th,  Dreadful 
railway  accident  near  Dubliji.    August  29th,  Queen 


484  IKELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PKESEXT. 

A.  D. 

1853.  Victoria,  Prince  Albert,  and  Prince  of  Wales  ar- 
rive to  see  the  Dublin  exhibition.  Oct.  4th, 
Tenant-Right  League  conference.  Oct.  31st, 
Dublin  Exhibition  closed. 

1854.  Attempted  abduction  of   Mrs.  Pluthnot  by  John 

Garden  of  Bariiane.  Jan.  5th,  Lord  Plunket,  the 
famous  lawyer  and  opponent  of  the  Legislative 
Union  died.  Sept.  loth,  Trains  wilfully  upset  after 
an  Orange  Demonstration  at  Londonderry;  one 
person  killed  and  many  hurt. 

1855.  Feb.  11th,  Tenant-Right  Meeting  in  Clare.  June 

15th,  Right  Rev.  Dr.  Doyle  (J.  K.  L.)  died.  Don- 
nybrook  Fair  abolished. 

1856.  Feb.  16th,  John  Sadlier  the  destroyer  of  the  Irish 

Independent  Parliamentary  Party,  poisoned  him- 
self on  Ilarapstead   Heath,  London. 


1857.  Feb.  18th,  New  writ  ordered  for  Tipperary,  in  the 

room  of  James  Sadlier,  expelled  the  House  of 
Commons.  Sept.  Religious  riots  at  Belfast.  Nov. 
25th,  Charles  Gavan  Duffy  elected  Member  for 
Villers  and  Heytesbury,  Colony  of  Victoria, 
Australia. 

1858.  March  27th,  John  Hogan,  sculptor,  died.  Proclama- 

tion against  Secret  Societies  issued  by  the  Earl  of 
Eglinton,  Viceroy  of  Ireland.  Father  Theobald 
Mathew,  the  Apostle  of  Temperance  died.  Ten- 
ant League  meeting  and  banquet  at  Mallow. 
August.  6th,  First  Atlantic  Cable  laid  between  Ire- 
land and  Newfoundland.  August  17th,  Dr.  Cane 
of  Kilkenny,  died.  August  25th,  Consecration  of 
new  church,  Ballinasloe,  by  Archbishop  of  Tuam; 
Sermon  by  Cardinal  Wiseman.  Sept.  5th,  Cardinal 
Wiseman  preached  in  the  Metropolitan  Church, 
Dublin.  Sept.  Progress  of  Cardinal  Wiseman  in  Ire- 
land. Sept.  A  packet  from  Gal  way  reaches  North 
America  in  six  days.    Nov.  Proclamation  against 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  485 

A.  D. 

1858.  secret  societies.  Dec.  Sixteen  persons  arrested  in 
Belfast,  charged  with  being  members  of  the  "  Phoe- 
nix Society." 

1859.  April  14th,  Lady  Morgan  died.    Sept.  Agitation 

against  the  Irish  National  school  system.  Oct. 
Religious  revival  movement  in  the  north,  particu- 
larly at  Belfast. 

1860.  June  29th,  Visit  of  the  Prince  of  "Wales.  Great 

emigration  to  America.  July.  M:iny  Irishmen 
enlist  in  the  service  of  the  Pope,  with  Miles 
O'Reilly  as  their  colonel.  Battle  of  Castle  Fidardo. 
The  Irish  contingent  gloriously  distinguish  them- 
selves. Sept.  17th,  Heroic  defence  ol"  Spoleto  by  a 
detachment  of  the  Irish  Pontifical  Briorade,  onlv 
312  strong,  against  Fanti's  Sardinian  troops  of 
8,000  men.,  Nov.  The  Irish  Pontifical  Brignde, 
after  service  in  the  defence  of  the  Papal  territories, 
arrive  at  Queenstovvn.  Nov.  The  remainder  taken 
prisoners  by  the  Sardinian's  are  released  and  returu 
to  Dublin,  where  they  receive  an  ovation.  Oct.  23d, 
Agrarian  outrages.  Alderman  Sheehy  murdered. 
Dec.  Attempted  revival  of  Repeal  agitation. 

1861.  April  8th,  Census  of   Ireland  taken,  population, 

5,764,543.  May  23d,  Suspension  of  packet  service 
between  Galway  and  America  through  the  com- 
pany's breach  of  contract.  August  24th-31st, 
Visit  of  the  Queen  and  prince  consort  to  Ireland. 
Nov.  10th,  McManus'  funeral  in  Dublin.  John 
O'Donovan,  LL.D.,  the  celebrated  Gaelic  scholar 
and  translator  died.  Dec.  13th,  Irish  law  court 
commission  appointed. 

1862.  Jan.  24th,  Miles  Byrne,  a  '98  hero,  afterwards  chef- 

de-battaillon  in  the  French  service,  died  at  Paris. 
Feb.  16th,  Fort  Donelson  captured  by  Union  forces. 
June  30th,  Battle  of  Mnlvern  ITill.  J"ly  30th, 
Professor  Eugene  O'Cnrry.  the  Irish  scholar  died, 
Sept.  17th,  An  Orange  demonstration  at  Belfast 


43G  h:i:la::d,  past  axd  pkesext. 

A  D. 

\&62.  leads  to  destructive  riots.  Dec.  J.  Slieiidan 
Knowles  died. 

1863.  Irish  brigades,  regiments,  and  companies,  to  the 
number  of  a  quarter  of  a  million  soldiers,  joining 
in  the  American  army.  Great  emigration  of  able- 
bodied  hiborers  from  Ireland  to  the  United  States. 
August,  Gal  way  packet  service  restored  by  subsidy 
of  70,000.  Great  agricultural  distress,  many  mur- 
ders and  outrages.  Oct.  8th,  Death  of  Archbisliop 
Whately.  Dec.  22d,  Death  of  General  Michael 
Corcoran  in  Virginia. 

1864-    The  Fenians  active  at  home  and  in  America.  Jan. 

Most  Rev.  John  Hughes,  Archbishop  of  New  Yoi-k 
died.  May  5th,  Battle  of  the  Wilderness.  June 
15th,  Battle  between  the  Kearsarge  and  the 
Alabama,  off  Brest.  June  17th,  William  Smith 
O'Brien,  the  illustrious  Irish  patriot,  died  at  Ban- 
gor in  Whales.  June  23d,  Smith  O'Brien's  funeral 
procession  in  Dublin.  August  8th,  First  stone  of 
the  O'Connell  Monument  laid  in  Dublin;  great 
public  proces.^ion. 

1865.  Jan  12th,  Address  of  the  National  Association  to 
liberate  tenant  capital,  and  recover  the  property  of 
the  Catholic  Church.  May  9th,  Opening  of  the 
International  exhibition  at  Dublin  by  the  Prince  of 
Wales.  June  27th,  Banquet  in  Dublin  to  welconio 
the  Plan.  C.  G.  Duffy.  Seizure  of  the  office  of  tho 
Irish  People  News})aper,  and  arrests  of  Fenian 
leaders.  O'Connell's  Statue  erected  in  Eniiis, 
county  Clare.  July,  General  election  favorabh'  to 
the  government  and  liberal  party.  August  25th, 
Importation  of  cattle  from  England  prolnbited  on 
account  of  the  plague.  Sept,  15-17,  Oct.  14tl), 
Seizure  of  the  newspaper  "Irish  people"  and  30 
Fenians.  Nov.  9th,  International  exhibition  closed. 
Capture  of  James  Stephens,  Charles  J.  Kickham, 
H.  Bropby,  and  Edward  Duffy,  at  Fairfield  House, 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTOEY  OF  IlIELAND.  4S7 

A.  D. 

1S65,  near  Dublin,  Nov.  27th,  Opening  of  the  Special 
Commission  in  Dublin  for  trial  of  Fenian  prisoners. 
Escape  of  James  Stephens,  Fenian  *'  Head-Centre," 
from  Richmond  Prison,  Dublin.  Dec.  1st,  Thomas 
Clarke  Luby  convicted  of  treason  felonv,  and 
sentenced  to  20  year's  penal  servitude.  Dec.  6th, 
John  O  Leary,  Editor  of  the  IrUJb  People  news- 
paper, sentenced  to  penal  servitude  for  twenty 
years,  Dec.  13th,  O'Donovan  Rossa  sentenced  to 
imprisonment  for  life. 

1866.  Jan.  11th,  Discovery  of  an  arms  manufactory  at 
Dublin,  the  city  and  county  proclaimed  and  put 
under  the  provisions  of  the  Peace  Preservation  Act. 
Jan.  16th,  County  and  City  of  Dublin  proclaimed. 
Jan.  28th,  Reward  of  £1,000  offered  for  the  arrest 
of  James  Stephens,  Fenian  Head-Centre.  Feb. 
2d,  Special  Commission  for  trial  of  Fenian  prisoners 
closed,  after  conviction  of  36  prisoners  and  acquittal 
of  three.  Feb.  1 7th,  Habeas  Corpus  Act  suspended. 
Generals  Denis  F.  Burke,  Michael  Kerwin,  Charles 
Halpin,  and  about  150  other  American  officei*s  of 
various  s^rades,  who  were  in  Ireland  awaiiins:  the 
rising,  arrested  under  the  Habeas  Corpus  suspen- 
sion Act  and  thrown  into  prison.  Habeas  Corpus 
suspended  for  Ireland  by  forced  "readings"  in  the 
English  Parliament.  Arrests  Avholesale  in  anticipa- 
tion in  Ireland  sixteen  hours  before  bill  passed. 
More  Fenians  arrested  and  convicted  at  Cork 
and  Dublin.  Agitation  respecting  Irish  church 
debates  in  Parliament.  May  20th,  Rev.  Francis 
Mahony  ("Father  Prout")  died.  The  American 
"Fenians"  invaded  Canada.  June  2d,  Battle  of 
Ridgeway:  rout  of  the  "Queen's  Own"  Canadian 
Volunteers  by  the  Irish  under  O'Xeil.  Capture 
of  a  British  flag.  President  Johnson's  proclama- 
tion against  the  Fenian  invasion  of  Canada.  Re- 
turn   of    tiie    Irish    expedition    from  Canada. 


I 


48S  IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

1866.  July,     Lord     Abercorii      made  lord-lieutenant. 

August  3d,  Renewal  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Sus- 
pension Act.  Sept.  1st,  About  320  suspected 
Fenians  remain  in  prison.  Oct.  20lb,  Public  dem- 
onstratio<i  in  honor  of  Cardinal  Cullfn,  in  Dublin. 
Death  of  John  B.  Dillon.  Dec.  16th,  Great  seizure 
of  fire  arm.<.  Clare  and  otlier  counties  pro- 
claimed under  Peace  Preserv^ation  Act.  Fenian 
rising  threatened  in  Ireland.  Dec.  ISth,  Riots  in 
Dnngannon.  Captain  Bart  Kelly  killed.  A  large 
number  of  Irish  officers  who  had  served  in  ilie 
Amercan  war  in  Ireland  awaiting  the  rising,  most 
of  whom  were  arrested  under  the  Habeas  Coi-pu3 
Act.  Extensive  seizure  of  Fenian  arms  in 
Belfast. 

1867.  Feb.  William  Dargan,  the  great  railroad  contractor, 

died.  Suspension  of  Habeas  Corpus  Act.  March 
12th,  Fenian  rising  in  Kerry,  Tipperary,  Limerick, 
Dublin,  and  elsewhere.  March  31st,  Peter  O'Neill 
Crowley  shot  in  Kilclooney  wood.  The  Fenian 
rising  suppressed  and  arrest  of  numerous  prisoners. 
April  8th,  Commission  to  try  Fenian  prisoners 
opened  in  Dublin.  Several  found  guilty  and  sen- 
tenced to  various  terms  of  imprisonment,  and  a  few 
to  death,  but  their  sentence::  were  commuted  to 
imprisonment.  July  1st,  General  Thomas  Francis 
Meas^her  accidentally  drowned  in  the  Missouri 
river.  Sept.  18th,  Rescue  of  Kelly  and  Deasy  at 
Manchester.  Officer  Brett  shot.  Nov.  23d,  Execu- 
tion of  William  P.  Allen,  Michael  O'Brien,  and 
Michael  Larkin,  for  the  murder  of  Officer  Brett 
while  rescuing  Deasy  and  Kelly.  Dec.  8th, 
Monster  Fenian  procession  in  Dublin,  in  honor  of 
the  patriots,  Allen,  Larkin,  and  O'Brien. 

1868.  Jan.  lOih,  Prosecution  of  the  Irishman  newspaper. 

Feb.  6th,  Great  Protestant  defence  meeting  in 
Dublin.    March  Istj  Habeas  Corpus  Act  suspended 


CHRONOLOGICAL  IIISTOIIY  OF  IPwELAND.  489 


A.  D 

18G8,  Messrs.  Sullivan  and  Pigot  convicted  for  libelous 
articles  in  The  Nation  2a\^  Irishman.  March  19th, 
Irish  Reform  Bill  introduced  into  the  Commons. 
April  15th,  Mr.  Featherstonehaugh,  I.  C,  shot  dead 
while  returning  from  Dublin  after  raising  the  rent 
on  his  tenants.  Visit  of  the  Prince  and  Princess 
of  Wales  to  Ireland.  May  26th,  Michael  Barrett 
han^-ed  in  London  for  beini?  concerned  in  the 
Clerkenwell  explosion. 

1869.  Jan.  30th,  William  Carleton,  the  Irish  novelist,  died. 

May  15th,  O'Connell's  remains  deposited  under  the 
Round  tower  in  Glasnevin.  May  31st,  The  Irish 
Church  Disestablishment  Bill  passed  the  House  by  a 
vote  of  361  to  247.  July  26th,  The  Irish  Church 
Bill  receives  the  royal  assent.  Nov.  9th,  Proclama- 
tion issued  against  an  amnesty  meeting  at  Cabra. 
Nov.  25th,  O'Donovan  Rossa,  though  in  prison, 
.    elected  a  member  for  Tipperary. 

1870.  May  19th,  Great  Home  Rule  Convention  held  in 

Dublin,  at  which  the  Home  Rule  League  was  or- 
ganized. The  meeting  was  attended  by  persons  of 
all  religious  denominations.  May  26th,  Several 
Fenian  raids  on  Canada.  General  O'Neill  arrested 
by  the  United  States  authorities.  Father  McMahon 
arrested  by  the  English  and  sentenced  to  death, 
which  sentence  was  commuted.  July  18th,  Michael 
Davitt  convicted  of  being  a  Fenian  agent,  and  of 
supplying  arms  to  the  men  at  home,  sentenced  to 
fifteen  years'  penal  servitude. 

1871.  Jan.  5th,  O'Donovan  Rossa  and  the  other  Fenian 

prisoners  released.  Jan.  19th,  Their  arrival  and 
reception  in  New  York. 
1875.  John  Mitchel  elected  member  for  Tipperary.  Ilis 
election  opposed  by  the  government.  March  20th, 
John  Mitchel  died  at  Dromalane,  near  Newry. 
March  29th,  John  Martin  died  in  Newry.  Charles 
Kickham,  the  Irish  patriot,  poet,  and  novelist,  who 


4 


490  IRELA^'D,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

1875.  died  iu  1882,  was  ran  for  Tipperary  and  beaten  hy 
government  tactics  only  by  a  majority  of  four. 

1877.  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  a  member  of  the  Home 

Rule  League  elected  member  for  Meatb,  a  vacancy 
having  been  caused  by  the  deatli  of  John  Martin. 
Mr.  Pdrncll  makes  his  first  mark  in  Parliament  in 
opposition  to  the  Iiish  Prison  Bill  and  the  Mutiny 
Bill.  Wholesale  evictions  in  Ireland.  General 
failure  of  the  crops.  Dec.  19th,  Michael  Davitt  and 
Charles  McCarthy  released  on  "Ticket-of-leave'' 
from  Dartmoor  prison.  Dec.  .22d,  Death  of  Mc- 
Carthy in  Dublin. 

1878.  Ireland  threatened  with  another  famine.    A  wet 

season  and  general  failure  of  the  crops  again.  The 
peasantry  iu  several  parts  of  Ireland  suffering  from 
want.  April  2d,  Lord  Leitrim  assassinated.  Mr. 
Davitt  in  America.  In  a  lecture  in  Boston  he  out- 
lined the  programme  of  the  Land  League  organiza- 
tion. 

1879.  Oct.  21st,  Great  convention  in  Dublin  and  formation 

of  the  Irish  Land  League,  with  Mr.  Parnell  Presi- 
dent. Famine  reported  from  the  west  and  south- 
west of  Ireland.  Davitt  advises  the  tenants  not  to 
pay  their  rents  if  it  were  necessary  to  keep  them 
frotn  starvation.  In  December  of  this  year  Parnell 
and  Dillon  sailed  for  America  where  they  arrive 
Jan.  2d,  1880. 

1880.  Feb.  2d,  Mr.  Parnell  received  bv  the  American  Con- 

gress  and  addressed  the  Houses.  Some  £70,000 
were  forwarded  to  the  Land  League  from  America 
throusrh  the  influence  of  Messrs  Parnell  and  Dillon. 
Land  League  Branches  established  througliout 
America, 

1880.  The  system  of  Boycotting  which  was  called  after  its 
first  victim,  captain  Boycott,  adopted  in  Ireland. 
The  famine  wide-spread  in  Ireland.  The  Mansion 
House  Committee,  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough's 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTOPwY  OF  IliELAND.  491 

A.  D. 

1880.  Committee, the  Land  League  Association  and  tbeir 
Committees  come  to  the  aid  of  the  starving  people. 
A  dissolution  of  Parliament  occurs  in  the  spring 
of  this  year.  Several  members  of  the  Land  League 
party  including  Mr.  Parnell,  elected.  April.  The 
New  Parliament  assembled  with  Mr.  Gladstone 
Prime-Minister.  Land  League  meeting  held 
Ihrouixhout  Ireland.  The  tenants  continue  in  their 
opposition  to  the  landlords.  Prosecution  of  Parneil, 
Dillon,  Sexton  and  other  members  in  Dublin.  Dis- 
agreement of  the  Jury  and  discharges  of  the  trav- 
ersers. 

1881.  Jan.  6th,  Parliament  opens:  Gladstone  foreshadows 

a  Land  Bill  and  a  Coercion  Bill  for  L-eland.  Ob- 
struction in  the  House  by  the  Irish  Members.  Feb, 
2d,  The  speaker  declared  that  obstruction  should 
be  stopped.  Feb.  3d,  Michael  Davitt  arrested 
again.  Feb.  4th,  Thirty-six  Irish  Members  ex- 
pelled the  House.  The  Coercion  Bill  introduced 
and  rushed  through.  Arrest  of  John  Dillon  fol- 
lowed by  that  of  Parnell,  Sexton,  and  about  six 
hundred  prominent  Lund  Leaguers  in  Ireland  who 
were  imprisoned  as  suspects.  Nov.  7th,  Arch- 
bishop McIIale  died  at  Tuam.  Ireland  stood  be- 
fore the  world  as  one  vast  prison  and  Poor  House. 

1882.  Jan.  1st,  Meeting  of  the  central  body  of  tlie  Ladies' 

Land  League  in  Dublin,  Miss  Anna  Parnell  presid- 
ing, in  defiance  of  the  orders  of  tlie  government. 
Jan.  2nd,  Charles  Dawson,  M.  P.,  inaugurated  Lord- 
Mayor  of  Dublin,  and  the  freedom  of  the  city 
voted  to  Charles  Stewart  Parnell  and  John  Dillon. 
Jan.  Vth,  A  "People's  Hunt,"  which  had  been  es- 
tablished under  the  name  of  the  "  National  Hunting 
Association,"  held  near  Maryborough,  Queen's  Co 
Over  one  hundred  horsemen  collected,  and  accom- 
panied by  dogs,  boaring  on  their  collars  such  names 
as  "Buckshot,"  "Revolver,"  "Dynamite,"  "  Rack^ 


492  IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

j882.  rent."  Jan.  11th,  Micliael  Davitt  visited  in  Port- 
land prison  by  Mrs.  A.  M.  Sullivan,  the  first  visitor 
he  had  been  allowed  to  see  in  six  months.  Jan. 
12th,  Tiie  members  of  the  Druracolloglier  Ladies' 
Land  League  (arrested  on  January  2,)  sentenced  to 
one  month's  imprisonment  at  the  Newcastle  West 
Petty  Sessions.  Jan.  13th,  King's  County  pro- 
claimed under  the  Coercion  Act.  Jan.  16th,  At 
the  Roscommon  Petty  Sessions,  Misses  O'Carroll, 
M.  Curtin  and  C.  Hughes,  of  the  Ladies'  Land 
League,  were  committed  to  jail,  T.  P.  O'Connor 
visits  America  in  February  also  Father  Sheehy 
and  T.  M.  Healy.  Jan.  25th,  Meeting  held 
in  Dublin,  at  which  it  was  resolved  to  hold  an 
Irish  National  Industrial  Exhibition.  January, 
28th,  A.  M.  Sullivan  resigned  his  seat  in  Par- 
liament for  Meath,  on  account  of  ill-heahh. 
Jan.  29th,  a  number  of  children,  from  seven  to 
ten  years  old,  arrested  at  Cappamore,  County  Kim- 
erick,  for  Avhistling  the  tune,  of  "Harvey  Duff." 
Feb.  3d,  The  police  seized  20,000  copies  of  the 
Land  League  organ.  United  Ireland^  in  Liverpool, 
England.  Feb.  5th,  Right  Rev.  Andrew  Higgins 
solemnly  consecrated,  in  the  Cathedral,  Killarney, 
Roman  Catholic  Bishop  of  the  Diocese  of  Ardfert 
and  Aghadoe.  Feb.  8th,  Dr.  Kenny  released 
from  Kilniainham  Jail.  W.  K.Redjnond  arrested 
as  a  suspect  at  Ballyragget.  Feb.  14ih,  Five 
baronies  of  the  county  Roscommon  and  twelve  bar- 
onies of  the  county  Waterford  were  proclaimed. 
Feb.  16th,  Several  thousand  tenant  farmers  from 
the  various  counties  in  Ireland  assembled,  and 
performed  all  the  am-icultural  work  necossarv  on 
Mr.  Parnell's  property  at  Avondale.  Feb.  22d, 
Shots  exchanged  between  the  military  and  the 
people  at  Carrick-on-Suir,  County  Tipperary.  Feb. 
25th,  Michael  Davitt,  in  prison,  elected  member 


CHROI^OLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  493' 

A.  D. 

1882.      for  Meatli,  A.  M.  Sullivan  having  resigned  the  seat. 

Feb.  28th,  The  Meath  election,  at  wliicli  Daviit 
was  chosen,  declared  void.  In  Skipper-alley,  Dub- 
lin, an  informer  named  Bernard  Bailey  shot  dead. 
March  8th,  Archbishop  McCabe,  of  Dublin,  nomin- 
ated a  Cardinal  by  the  Pope.  March,  9th,  James 
Bourke,  business  partner  of  Mr.  Egan,  Ti  easurer 
of  the  Land  League,  arrested  under  the  "  Coercion 
Act,"  in  Dublin.  March,  14th,  The  publication  of 
United  Ireland,  the  Land  League  organ,  tempor- 
arily suspended  on  account  of  police  persecution. 
March,  20th,  The  Most  Rev.  Thomas  NuUy,  D.D., 
Bishop  of  Meath,  refused  to  attend  the  committee 
of  the  Hduse  of  Lords  to  inquire  into  the  workings 
of  the  Land  Act.  Mai'ch,  25th,  At  Rathdowney, 
Queen's  County,  Rev.  T.  Feehan,  was  prosecuted 
under  the  Coercion  Act,  before  Justices  or  to  go  to 
prison  for  six  months.  He  refused  to  give  bail  and 
was  taken  to  Maryborough  Prison.  March,  27th, 
Archbishop  McCabe  was  solemnly  created  a  Car- 
dinal in  Rome.  March,  30th,  Arthur  Herbert,  J.  P., 
Killintieran,  Farranfore,  County  Kerry,  an  active 
anti-Leaguer  and  rack-renting  agent,  shot  dead  while 
returning  from  the  Castleisland  Petty-Sessions, 
The  official  list  of  suspects  detained  in  i)rison 
'on  April  1.  numbered  5n.  April  2nd,  As  W.  B. 
Smythe,  of  Barbavilla  House,  a  landowner  in  West- 
meath,  of  the  most  obnoxious  evicting  character, 
was  returning  from  church,  with  Mrs.  Smythe,  his 
brother's  wife,  ar.d  Lady  Harriet  Moncke,  they 
were  fired  at,  a  shot  striking  Mrs.  Smythe,  killing 
her  instantly.  April.  9th,  Charles  Stewart  Parnell, 
released  from  Kilmainham  jail  on  pn-role,  to  enable 
him  to  attend  the  funeral  of  his  nephew  in  Paris. 
April,  loth,  Conditional  release  was  offered  to 
American  suspects,  which  was  not  accepted.  The 
American  Minister  was^  instructed  to  demand  their 


irela:?^d,  past  and  present. 


trial  or  release.  April,  lltb,  Captain  Dugraore, 
prosecuted  at  the  Parsontowii  sessions  for  posting 
"no  rent''  placards,  was  sentenced  to  imprison- 
ment for  six  months.  April  loth,  An  official  report 
declared  the  number  of  evictions  for  the  first  quar- 
ter of  the  year  to  be  V34.  April  18th,  Up  to  this 
date  918  "  suspects"  "w  ere  arrested  under  the  oper- 
ations of  the  Coercion  Act.  April  20th,  Miss  Annie 
Kirke,  of  the  Dublin  Ladies'  Land  League,  arrested 
at  Tulla  and  sent  to  Limerick  Jail.  April  24lh,  Mr. 
Parnell  surrendered  his  parole,  and  returned  toKil- 
mainhani  Jail.  April  2oth,  Miss  Hannah  Reynolds, 
of  the  Ladies'  Land  League,  Avas  arrested  in  Birr, 
and  sentenced  to  six  months' imprisonment.  April 
28th,  Earl  Cowper  resii^ned  the  office  of  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant of  Ireland  and  Earl  Spencer  succeeded  him. 
April  30th,  The  number  of  evictions  in  April  was 
519;  of  persons  evicted  2,734;  of  these  1,506  were 
ejected  absolutely.  The  number  of  persons  evicted 
in  Connaught,  807;  in  Munster  740;  in  Ulster  612. 
May  2d,  "  Buckshot"  Forster,  Chief-Secretary  for 
Ireland,  resigned.  Messrs.  Parnell,  Dillon  and 
O'Kelley,  released  from  Kilmainham.  The  police 
came  into  collision  with  the  people  at  Belmullet, 
Miyo,  and  two  women  were  killed.  May  3d,  Three 
ladies,  members  of  the  Tralee  Land  League,  were 
arrested  and  sentenced  to  six  months  imprisonment. 
Parnell  and  the  other  members  of  Parliament  re- 
leased from  Kilmainham  Jail.  May,  4th,  Lord  Fred- 
erick Cavendish  accepted  the  post  of  Chief-Secre- 
tary in  place  of  ^Vfr.  Forster.  Michael  Davitt  was 
unconditionally  released  from  Portland  prison. 
May,  5th,  During  the  rejoicings  at  Ballina,  County 
Mayo,  over  the  release  of  the  susjiects,  a  collision 
took  place  between  the  police  and  the  people.  The 
police  fired  on  the  crowd,  wounding  a  number  of 
boys,  two  of  them  fatally.    May,  6th,  Lord  Fred- 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  495 

A.  D. 

1882,      erick  Cavendisl),  the  new  Chief-Secretary,  and  Mr. 

Thomas  Henry  Burke,  the  Under-Secretary,  were 
assassinated  while  M  ai  king  near  the  Viceregal 
Lodge,  in  the  Phoenix  Park,  Dublin.  May,  11th, 
Gladstone's  infamous  Repression  Bill  was  intro- 
duced in  the  House  of  Commons.  May,  17th, 
The  Irish  judges  strenuously  protested  againist  the 
abolition  of  trial  by  jury  under  the  proposed 
"  Crimes  Act."  May,  22d,  Rev.  Eugene  Sheehy, 
returned  to  Kilmallock,  County  Limerick,  and  re- 
ceived an  ovation.  May,  25th,  Lord  Cloncurry 
evicted  215  families  on  his  estates  in  the  County 
Limerick.  June,  4th,  The  Hon.  F.  Fitzgerald, 
Baron  of  the  Exchequer  in  Ireland,  resigned,  as  he 
was  unwilling  to  administer  the  provisions  of  the 
Repression  Act.  June,  6th,  The  monument  to  the 
"Manchester  Martyrs,"  Allen,  Larkin  and  O'Brien, 
unveiled  at  Ennis,  Clare.  Michael  Davitt  delivered 
Iiis  famous  "  Nationalization  of  Land"  speech,  at  a 
meeting  in  his  honor  at  Liverpool.  June,  8th, 
Walter  M.  Bourke,  of  Rahasane,  Galway,  an  evic- 
ting landlord,  shot  near  Castle  Taylor,  Athenry. 
June,  9th,  The  Irish  Bishops  issued  an  address 
promising  the  support  of  the  clergy  to  the  people 
for  peaceful  agitation  for  their  rights.  June  15th, 
Miss  Anna  Parnell  applied  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
for  a  hearing  in  aid  of  the  evicted  tenants.  June, 
16th,  The  Corporation  of  Limerick  conferred  the 
freedom  of  the  city  on  Michael  Davitt.  June,  2^3d, 
The  notorious  Cork  rack-renter,  "William  Bence 
Jones,  died  in  London.  July  1st,  All  the  Irish 
National  members  suspended  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, for  opposition  to  the  Repression  Bill. 
July  6th,  John  II.  Blake,  (agent  of  the  estate  of 
•  the  Marquis  of  Clanricarde.)  and  his  servant, 
Thady  Kane,  shot  near  Loughrea,  County  Galway. 
July  9tli,  At  Listowel  Kerry,  the  police  lired  o 


49G  n^ELA^^D,  past  and  pkesext. 

A.  D. 

1882.  the  crowd,  injuring  several  persons.  July  13lh, 
The  Repression  Bill  passed  the  House  of  Lords,  and 
became  a  law.  July  19l1j,  The  Arrears  of  Rent  Bill 
passed  the  House  of  Commons.  Miss  Fanny  Pamell  . 
died  suddenly  at  Bordentown,  X.  J.  August  2cl, 
An  official  return  showed  that  170  suspects  were  in 
prison  in  Ireland.  August  9th,  Henry  George  ar- 
rested at  Loughren.  August  10th,  The  Irish  Con- 
stabulary "  strike."  The  Ladies'  Land  League  dis- 
solved at  a  special  meeting,  held  in  Dublin.  Aug. 
loth,  The  Irish  National  Exhibition  was  opened  by 
Lord  Mayor  Dawson,  and  the  statue  of  O'Connell 
was  unveiled  in  Dublin,  in  presence  of  100,000 
people.  Messrs.  Parnell,  Dillon,  Sullivan,  and 
Davitt  were  present.  August  16th,  E.  Dwyer 
Gray,  M.  P.,  High-Sheriff  ol  Dublin,  and  proprie- 
tor of  the  FreemarCs  Journal^  sentenced  by  Judge 
Lawson  to  three  months,  imprisonment  and  to  pay 
a  fine  of  £500  for  criticising  the  jury  and  the  court 
which  convicted  Francis  Hynes  of  murder.  The 
freedom  of  the  city  of  Dublin  was  presented  to 
Messrs.  Parnell  and  Dillon,  nearly  every  Mayor 
in  Ireland  being  present.  August  18th,  The 
Joyce  family  of  six  persons  were  murdered  by 
a  party  of  men  at  Maamtrasna,  near  Cong.  Aug. 
22nd,  Charles  J.  Kickham,  the  patriot  poet  and 
writer,  died  m  Dublin,  aged  53  years.  Sept.  11th, 
Francis  Hynes,  a  respectable  youug  resident  ot  the 
County  Clare,  who  was  convicted  of  a  murder  lie 
did  not  commit  by  a  drunken  jury  at  the  Dublin 
"Special  Commission,"  and  sentenced  to  death  by 
Judge  Lawson,  was  hanged  in  Limerick  tTail,  pro- 
testing his  innocence  to  the  last.  Sept.  20th,  A 
woman  named  McCormick  was  shot  by  a  process- 
server,  near  Glenties,  in  Donegal,  while  resisting 
the  seizure  of  her  cattle.  Sept.  22nd,  Fatricl: 
"Walsh,  convicted  by  the  same  tribunal  that  con- 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  497 

A.  D. 

1882,  deriined  Francis  Hynes,  was  hanged  at  Galway,  for 
the  murder  of  Martin  Lyden.  He  protested  his  in- 
nocence to  the  last.  Sept.  27th,  The  military  and 
police  evicted  fifty  families  in  the  barony  of  Erris, 
Mayo,  and  the  people  were  ordered  not  to  shelter 
them.  Sept.  30th,  Gladstone's  Coercion  Law  ex- 
pired by  limitation  in  Ireland,  only  to  be  succeeded 
by  the  enaction  of  the  equally  barbaric  "  Repres- 
sion Bill."  E.  Dwyer  Gray,  M.  P.,  High  Sheriff  of 
Dublin,  released  from  prison  by  Judge  Lawson, 
but  had  to  pay  the  fine  of  £500.  October.  1st,  A 
fierce  storm  swept  over  Ireland,  doing  great  damage 
to  property,  and  bringing  ruin  to  the  crops  through- 
out all  the  asfricultural  districts  in  the  South  and 
West.  Oct.  8th,  Father  Eugene  Sheehy,  Kilmal- 
lock,  the  ex-suspect,  was  presented  by  his  parish- 
ioners with  an  address  and  a  testimonial  worth 
£2,500.  Oct.  17th,  The  National  Conference  was 
held  in  Dublin  and  was  attended  by  over  a  thousand 
delegates.  The  Land  League  funds  were  all  ac- 
counted for,  and  the  National  League  was  estab- 
lished. Oct.  27th,  Three  hundred  people  on  Tory 
Island  were  declared  to  be  without  food,  and  that 
other  portions  of  the  population  on  the  Western 
coast  of  Ireland  were  threatened  with  starvation. 
Nov.  10th,  thirty  families,  comprising  160  per- 
sons, were  evicted  on  the  estate  of  Isidore  Burke,  at 
Curraleigh,  Mayo.  Nov.  14th,  M.  J.  Kenny  was 
elected  by  the  Nationalists  of  Ennis  to  the  seat  in 
Parliament,  vacant  through  the  resignation  of  J. 
Lysaght  Finigan.  Nov.  25th,  During  a  street  row 
in  Dublin  a  detective  named  Cox  was  shot,  and  an 
emeute  took  place  between  the  police  and  a  party 
of  men.  Nov.  28th,  The  City  of  Dublin,  the  capital 
of  Ireland,  containing  over  300,000  inhabitants,  was 
"  proclaimed''  and  placed  under  the  operation  of  tlie 
*'Curfew"  section  of  the  '^Repression  Act,"  which 


y 


498  IRELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PEESEXT. 

A.  D. 

1882.  authorizes  the  police  "to  arrest  all  suspicious  per- 
sons found  out  of  doors  between  an  hour  after  sun- 
set and  an  hour  before  sunrise."  December  Ist, 
The  Right  Honorable  Charles  Dawson,  M.  P.,  was 
re-elected  Lord-Mayor  of  Dublin.  Up  to  this 
date  60,000  applications  were  received  from 
Irish  tenants  wishing  to  take  the  benefit  of 
the  "  Arrears  of  Rent  Act."  December  15th, 
Patrick  Joyce,  Mil  us  Joyce,  and  Patrick 
Casey  executed  at  Galway  for  the  murder  of  the 
Joyce  family  at  Maamtrasna.  Prosecutions  com- 
menced against  Mr.  Biggar,  Mr.  Harrington  and 
the  proprietors  of  several  provincial  Journals  for 
speeches  and  articles  "  inciting  to  crime."  Dec. 
20rh,  General  arrests  in  Dublin  under  the  Curfew 
law.  Dublin  Castle  barred  and  bolted  every  night 
after  dark.  Michael  Flynn,  the  last  of  the  men 
arraigned  for  the  murder  of  the  Huddys  at  Lough 
Mask,  found  guilty  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged 
January  17th.  December  23d,  Poff  and  Barrett, 
two  men  accused  of  the  murder  of  a  farmer  named 
Brown,  near  Cartlin's  land,  found  guilty  and  sen- 
tenced to  be  hanged  January  23d.  Forty  young 
farmers  arrested  at  Ballymena  as  Suspects.  Dec. 
31st,  The  vear  closed  with  disaffection  and  famine 
widespread  over  Ireland. 

1883.  January  1st,  Great  distress  prevailing  in  portions  of 

Galway,  Mayo,  and  Donegal.  The  publication  of 
the  Unitecl  Ireland  ^hxch.  had  been  seized  resumed. 
Jan.  3d,  John  Sheridan  an  ex-suspect,  murdered 
near  Ballinamore.  Delaney  who  was  charged  with 
an  attempt  to  murder  Judge  Lawson,  found  guilty 
and  sentenced  to  ten  years  imprisonment.  A 
National  League  meeting  at  Ballinahowm  dispersed 
by  the  police.  A  man  named  Gleason  was  shot 
at  Upper  Cross,  County  Tipperary  by  Emergency 
men.    Mr.  Trevelyan,  Chief-Secretary  for  Ireland, 


CHRONOLOGICAL  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  499 

A.  D. 

1883.  visited  the  famine  districts  in  Donegal  and  recom- 
mends as  a  remedy  the  Poor-liouse  and  emigration. 
Jan.  10th,  Earl  Spencer  wages  bitter  war  against 
the  National  League.  Jan.  11th,  Mr.  Davitt  in 
speaking  of  the  famine,  said:  "The  peoj^le  of 
Ireland  have  had  enouGjh  of  futile  agitation  and 
semi-insurrections;  tliey  were  going  to  figlit  it  out 
this  time."  Jan.  15th,  Patrick  Iliggins  executed 
in  Galvvav  for  the  murder  of  the  Huddvs.  He  de- 
clared  his  innocence.  Several  airests  made  in 
Dublin,  of  persons  accused  of  participation  in  the 
murder  of  Lord  Cavendisli  and  Secretary  Burke. 
Jan.  17th,  Thom.as  Higgins  and  Michael  Flynn 
hanged  in  Galway  for  tlie  murder  of  the  Huddys. 
Jan.  18th,  Michael  Davitt  appears  before  the 
Queen's  Bench  and  justifies  the  speech  for  which 
he  was  indicted.  Jan.  20th,  Twenty-one  persons 
charged  witli  conspiracy  to  murder  government 
officials,  arraigned  in  the  Police  Courts  for  trial. 
Jan.  23d,  Poff  and  Barrett  hanged  at  Tralee  for  tlie 
murder  of  Thomas  Browne  at  Castle  Island.  They  de- 
clared their  innocence  to  the  last  moment.  Jan.  24th, 
Davitt,  Ilealy,  and  Quinn  sentenced  to  find  securi- 
ties for  good  behavior  or  go  to  jail  for  six  months. 
Mr.  O'Brien  editor  of  the  United  Ireland,  elected 
member  for  Mallow  over  the  Government  Candi- 
date. Jan.  2Tth,  Examination  of  the  prisoners 
charged  with  murder  and  conspiracy;  a  man  named 
Farrell  turned  informer.  February,  3d,  James 
Carey  a  member  of  the  Corporation,  Joseph  Brady, 
Edward  O'Brien,  Edward  McCaffery,  Peter  Carey, 
Peter  Doyle  and  Timothy  Kelly  w^ere  arraigned, 
charored  with  the  [Murder  of  Lord  Cavendish  and  jNIr. 
Burke.  Feb.  7th,  Earl  Spencer,  the  Lord-Lieutenant 
arrived  in  Dublin  from  London.  He  was  escorted 
from  the  railway  station  by  a  troop  of  hnzzars  and 
was  followed  by  cars  laden  with  detectives.  Mr. 


50v')  IRELxVND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 

A.  D. 

1883.  Trevelyan,  Chief-Secretary  for  Ireland,  escorted  by 
a  squad  of  detectives.  Despite  this  the  Queen  in 
her  speech,  a  few  days  afterwards,  said  that  peace 
and  tranquillity  were  restorediii  Ireland.  Feb.  Stli, 
Messrs.  Davitt,  Healy,  and  Quinn,  having  .refused 
to  give  bail,  were  arrested  and  conveyed  to  Kilmain- 
ham  jail.  Dowling,  who  was  accused  of  shouting 
Policeman  Cox,  found  guilty,  and  sentenced  to 
penal  servitude  for  life.  Feb.  10th,  James  Carey, 
the  town  councillor,  turned  informer.  Feb.  19th, 
Twenty-one  prisoners  committed  for  trial  to  an- 
swer the  charge  of  murdering  Lord  Frederick 
Cavendish  and  Thomas  Henry  Burke.  Carey  iden- 
tified the  prisoners,  and  also  implicated  a  man  named 
Frank  Byrne,  who  had  fled  to  France,  and  P.  J. 
Sheridan,  who  had  gone  to  America.  Their  extradi- 
tion refused.  March  12th,  Patrick  Egan,  Treasurer 
of  the  Irish  Land  League,  arrived  in  New  York. 
March  15th,  James  Mooney,  President  of  the  Irish 
Land  League,  has  issued  a  call  for  a  convention  to 
be  held  in  Philadelphia,  April  25th  and  26th,  at 
which  C.  S.  Parnell  signified  his  intention  of  being 
present.  March  16th,  great  scare  caused  in  London 
by  the  blowing  up  of  Government  offices  by  dyna- 
mite last  night.  March  iVth,  St.  Patrick's  day  was 
celebrated  throughout  the  world  with  tho  usual 
rejoicing. 


IKELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


501 


-5"  « 


5 


CD 

•  c 
•-I 


.—  3 


C 

-  o*- 
c 


p  o 


cr- 
o 


^9 

-  —  p  - 
«<  - 

O 

^« 
I— *  — ' 


o 

sr  5* 


IS" 


—  O" 


o 

P- 
3 

o 

o 
3 

o  - 


o 


p 

3- 
O 


p 
 o 

5 

p 
•1 


w 

3- 


u 

p 

3- 


a 

rt> 
3 
-1 

O 
3 


o 

«  ^  ^  =^ 


Lib 
so  o 
s  o 

P  (S.  I-H 

«<  3^2, 

-0=^-3_-. 

t=  c 


o  » 


f6 


3 

5' 

O 


H 

H 
I— I 


> 


^  O 


t-H 


t-H  ^ 


o 

3 
&. 

13 
3. 

3 

n 
o 

O 


o 

O 

o 


I— I 


H 
O 

> 


502 


.lEELAiS'D,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


xn 

o 


P^3 
W 

o 

c 


o 

5z: 


o 

a 

J^  =  i 

r  —  » 
c  -  a 

C3S3 

O  u 

c3 


a 

N 


o 


c  ::j 


92 


o 


c 

'So 
s 


s 
u 


o 

Pi 


o 

a 


<^  S 

^  o 

S  o  5 

C~  ri 

5  i:  i: 

05  c  =3 

c3  d 


2 

"a  • 

03  1-3 


2 
»^ 

o 

t£ 


§T3 


Em 


.-•3 

-s  =- 

O 


<_  o 

'  c  s 
«5  t,  a 
»r  «  o 

O  ^-1  (-■) 


(D 

o 

S  o  a 

r 


,  o 
a  . 


i  --3 


N  C  is 
C  S  u 


u  - 


~r  O 

5 


,0 

a  ^ 


.  ■ 

05 


a 
o 


O  ^ 


s  — 


a  y; 


-  c 
>5m 


a:  O 
c:  so 

o 

"lei" 

a 
CQ 

CO 


c 
o 

S 
<& 

Q 


£S5 

ii 


m 

CO 

T— < 

o 

o 


3 
»-5 


o 

00 

-£  a 
-a  E 


>> 

-fct 
SO 

o  * 


A  o 

p 


i- 

,« 
at.  i-" 
e3  . 

.X  O 

a 


o 
eo 


,"0 
a_r 

C  sj 

•a 

eo 


eo 


- »-  _ 
Si 


t 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PIIESENT.  503 


o 


§ 

.S 


o 

.8 

©J  .2 
S2 


l-  W) 

6  o 
«a 

o 
<1> 
bO 
ti 

•<>> 
>-l 

O 


-re's 
rt  O  •-£) 

o  o  ^ 


sS  - 


03 


s  s 

es  cj_ 


X  ,-1 

5  ^ 

»-S  3 


~  3  «  1*  c  »o 


01 

hi 

O  » 


eg 

^3 


0) 

03  fc-  C) 

o  — C3  J  c  1) 


3  ,iO 


m  "d 
OS  , 

-S-n- 

C  31 


■  3- 


c  o 

C  C  - 
,C  O  «  «5 


13  0)  S'O 
fi 


00  OJ  M 


o  w 


o 
o 

o 
si 


^  O  w  CO 


c5 


^  .5  t-" 

«  i«  >  .a  1" 

•r  c<     y  "-I  . 

=2^  H§ 


CO 


Mm 


^  u 


es  - 
t£ 


n3 


J3 


^  >» 


P4 

in 


,  hi 


ci  O 
Sh3 


J3 


a 
o 


^  Its  w  ^  -  ^ 

•O.S  1^2 


a; 


•ti  «  «  >  ^ 


D 
OQ 


OQ 

8- 


o 


■  OS  b{§ 


i 

♦CJ 

a 
o 

a 

OQ 

p 

a 
o 
*t 

§• 
u 


I 

c3 


.3 

at 

o 
a 

«^ 

a 


t-i 

» 
a> 


iiiela2hDj  past  and  pkesent. 


o 


o 


JS 

O  Oi 

^  s 


.a 

CO 

tl 

a> 
J3 
bO 

pq 

aS 
N 

S 


«  — : 


~  CO 
*-3  CO 


CO 

o 
(-> 


oU 
tf 
O 

o 
j3 

o 


to 

O 


o 


CO 


J3 

o 
o 


e3 
tifl 


5g 

.  »0  y 


es 


s 

J3 


w 


o  5 

«  i 


u  "O 

Si 

I- 1-1 

S  a 

o  «> 

^4 


5z; 


» 


o 
'a 

03 


00  Tl» 

m 


O  O  =3  00 


X  o 


.2  MO'? 


t3 
g 

^3  CC  0«  <«> 


—  I. 


S  ,  -at- 


o  -V  o  s2 


"t3 
-«-  g  o  . 

cog 


-  13 
O 


u 

a> 
♦J 

CQ 

^  a 

,2  « 

c  o 

-  03  (u 
^^'-^ 

£  aj  4) 
S  (-,  ao 

O  (-• 

<D 

li  <I> 

J3 


ei  c:  t- 


I 

o 
c 

s 


"-a  o 


c5  W 


ai  si      d  s 


03 

o 
b 

-  9 


a 

03 

-a 


o 


-I 

e3 


5 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


505 


a 


OS 


0) 
CO 


>  < 


I— 


a 

IE  o 

O 


 - 


C3 
O 

e 

u 
a 

G 


o 

I 
n 


e3 


3 

-  S3 


.C 


o 


a 

-X} 

a 

o 

1-3 


> 
9) 
CS 

a 
a 
)^ 
t-) 
o 

_  c 

a  c3 
^  pq 
o 

•-9  a 
o 


J3 
3 


u 
3 
O 

s 

c3 


1^ 

6  a 


-  s 

o 
x: 
Eh 


,3  O 


"COS! 


03 
O 


CM 


SO 

-  O  Tl  . 


03  . 


03 


c 
^  ■ 
o 


a> 
•§ 

3  V  9 
C3  53 

>3« 

^a^ 


,_  

c  »^ 

-  03  ^ 
■*j    ■*-*  ^ 

tfit-  3  t-, 

«  3  =3  a 

es  K  o_  M 
-O  3 

^  g  2 


5 


3 

o 

a 

JC  o 
bt— 
3  ^ 

'OfA  (o 


as  e 
03  f- 


3 
oj 


o 


03  (/I 

no 


OJ 

CO 


.2 


3  =3 

a<i 

W  o 


03 


_3 


«  —  3 


2 


J3 


o 

S  <i> 
.S  tD 


hi 

_  03 

6^ 


3 

132 


Ft 


O 
O 

to 
o 

Pi 


5^ 


,1-3 
—  aj  O 

o 


506  ICELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 

The  great  old  Irisli  houses,  the  proud  old  Irish  nanaes, 
Like  stars  upon  the  midnight  to-day  their  lustre  gleams; 
Gone  are  the  great  old  houses,  the  proud  old  names  are  low 
That  shed  a  glory  o'er  the  l^nd  a  thousand  years  ago; 
But  wheresoever  a  scion  of  these  great  old  houses  be, 
In  the  country  of  his  fathers,  or  the  land  beyond  the  sea, 
In  city,  or  in  hamlet,  by  the  valley,  on  the  hill. 
The  spirits  of  his  brave  old  sires  are  watching  o'er  him  still! 


IRETON  CONDEMNING  THE  BISHOP  OF  LIMERICK. 


PAENELL'S  HISTOEY 


OF  THE 

PENAL  LAWS 

IN  THE 

Reign  of  Anne. 

1701-1714. 

On  the  4th  of  Warch,  1704,  the  royal  assent  was  given 
to  the  act  to  prevent  the  further  growth  of  Popery, 
being  the  first  of  those  two  famous  acts  which  have,  most 
deservedly,  been  termed  by  Mr.  Burke  "  the  ferocious 
acts  of  Anne." 

By  the  third  clause  of  this  act,  the  Popish  father, 
though  he  may  have  acquired  his  estate  by  descent  from 
a  long  line  of  ancestors,  or  by  his  own  purchase,  is 
deprived  of  the  power, — in  case  his  eldest  son,  or  any 
son,  become  a  Protestant, — to  sell,  mortgage,  or  otherwise 
dispose  of  it,  or  to  leave  out  of  it  any  portion  of  legacies. 

By  the  fourth  clause,  the  Popish  father  is  debarred, 
under  a  penalty  of  ;£"5oo,  from  being  a  guardian,  or  from 
having  the  custody  of  his  own  children ;  but  if  the 
child,  though  ever  so  young,  pretend  to  be  a  Protestant, 
it  is  to  be  taken  from  its  own  father,  and  put  into  the 
hands  of  a  Protestant  relation. 

The  fifth  ^  clause  provides  that  no  Protestant  shall 
marry  a  Papist  having  an  estate  in  Ireland,  either  in  or 
out  of  the  kingdom. 

The  sixth  clause  renders  Papists  incapable  of  purchas- 
ing any  manors,  tenements,  hereditaments,  or  any  rents 


508 


Penal  Laws 


or  profits  arising  from  out  of  the  same,  or  of  holding 
any  lease  of  lives,  or  other  lease  whatever,  for  any  term 
exceeding  thirty-one  years.  Even  with  respect  to  this 
advantage,  restrictions  are  imposed  on  them :  one  of 
which  is,  that,  if  a  farm  produced  a  profit  greater  than  one- 
third  of  the  amount  of  the  rent,  the  right  of  holding  it  was 
immediately  to  cease,  and  to  pass  over  entirel}'  to  the  first 
Protestant  who  should  discover  the  rate  of  profit. 

The  seventh  clause  deprives  Papists  of  such  inheritance, 
devise,  gift,  remainder,  or  trust,  of  any  lands,  tenements, 
or  hereditaments,  of  which  any  Protestant  was  or  should 
be  seized  in  fee  simple,  absolute,  or  fee-tail,  which,  by  the 
death  of  such  Protestant  or  his  wife,  oiight  to  have  de- 
scended to  his  son  or  other  issue  in  tail,  being  Papists, 
and  makes  them  descend  to  the  nearest  Protestant  rela- 
tion, as  if  the  Popish  heir  and  other  Popish  relations 
were  dead. 

By  the  tenth  clause,  the  estate  of  a  Papist,  for  want  of 
a  Protestant  heir,  is  to  be  divided,  share  and  share  alike, 
among  all  his  sons  ;  for  want  of  sons,  among  his  daughters  ; 
and  for  want  of  daughters,  among  the  collateral  kindred 
of  the  father. 

By  the  fifteenth  clause,  no  person  shall  be  exempt  from 
the  penalties  of  this  act  that  shall  not  take  and  subscribe 
the  oath  and  declaration  required  by  this  act  to  be  taken. 

By  the  sixteenth  clause,  any  persons  whatsoever  who 
shall  receive  any  office,  civil  or  militar3%  shall  take  and 
subscribe  the  oath  and  declaration  required  to  be  taken  by 
the  English  act  of  3d  William  and  Mary,  and  also  the  oath 
and  declaration  required  to  be  taken  by  another  English 
act  of  1st  Anne;  also,  shall  receive  the  sacrament.^ 


*  Upon  this  clause  of  the  bill,  the  Protestnnt  Bishop  Burnett  makes  the 
following  observations:  A  clause  was  added  (in  England)  which  they  (the 
Roman  Catholics)  hoped  would  hinder  its  being  accepted  in  Ireland.  The 
matter  was  carried  on  so  secretly  that  it  was  known  to  none  but  those  who  were 
at  the  council,  till  the  news  of  it  came  from  Ireland,  upon  its  being  sent 


/;/  tJie  Reig?i  of  A^ine. 


500 


The  twenty-third  clause  provides  that  no  Papist, 
except  under  certain  conditions,  shall  dwell  in  Limerick 
or  Gal  way. 

The  twenty-fourth  clause,  that  no  persons  shall  vote  at 
elections  without  taking  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and 
abjuration. 

And  the  twenty-fifth  clause,  that  all  advowsons  pos- 
sessed by  Papists  shall  be  vested  in  her  majesty. 

The  Catholics,  who  had  submitted  in  silence  to  all  the 
unjust  transgressions  of  the  last  reign,  felt  it  necessary, 
when  this  act  was  first  brought  before  parliament,  to  use 
their  utmost  exertions  to  prevent  it  from  passing  into  a 
law.  They,  however,  appealed  in  vain  to  the  English 
cabinet  to  respect  the  solemn  engagements  of  the  Treaty 
of  Limerick,  and  were  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  a 
petition  to  the  Irish  parliament. 

Sir  Theobald  Butler  was  heard  as  counsel  for  the 
petitioners,  at  the  bar  of  the  House  of  Commons,  on  the 
22d  February,  1703.  He  stated  "that  the  bill  would 
render  null  and  void  the  articles  of  Limerick;  that  those 
articles  had  been  granted  for  the  valuable  consideration 
of  the  surrender  of  the  garrison  at  a  time  when  the 
Catholics  had  the  sword  in  their  hand,  and  were  in  a 
condition  to  hold  out  much  longer,  and  when  they  had 
it  in  their  power  to  demand  and  make  such  terms  as 
might  be  for  their  own  future  liberty,  safety,  and  security 
that  the  allowing  of  the  terms  contained  in  these  article, 
was  highly  advantageous  .to  the  government  to  which 
they  submitted,  as  v/ell  for  uniting  the  people  who 
were  then  divided,  quieting  and  settling  the  distractions 
and  disorders  of  this  miserable  kingdom,  as  for  the  otlier 

thither.  It  was  hoped,  by  those  who  got  this  clause  added  to  the  bill,  that 
those  in  Ireland  who  pTomoted  it  would  be  less  fond  of  it  when  it  had  such  a 
weight  hung  to  it" — Hist,  v,  ii  p.  24. 

This  clause  has  since  been  called  the  Sacramental  Test,  the  first  irriposetl 
on  Dissenters  in  Ireland  It  was  repealed  without  any  opposition  in  the 
Sessions  of  1782. 


510 


Penal  Laws 


advantages  which  the  government  would  thereby  rertp 
in  its  own  affairs,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  when  its 
enemies  were  so  powerful,  both  by  sea  and  land,  as  to 
render  the  peace  and  settlement  of  these  countries  a 
circumstance  of  great  uncertainty ;  that  these  articles 
xvere  ratified  by  their  late  majesties  for  themselves,  their 
heirs,  and  successors,  and  the  public  faith  thereby  plight- 
ed to  all  those  comprised  in  these  articles,  in  the  most 
binding  manner  it  was  possible  for  faith  to  be  plighted, 
and  than  which  nothing  could  be  more  sacred  and 
<:olemn ;  that,  therefore,  to  violate  and  break  those  articles 
would,  on  the  contrary,  be  the  greatest  injustice  possible 
for  any  one  people  of  the  whole  w^orld  to  inflict  upon 
;inother,  and  contrary  to  both  the  laws  of  God  and  man.*' 
He  then  proceeded  to  show  that  the  clauses  of  the  bill 
which  take  away  from  Catholics  the  right  to  purchase, 
bequeath,  sell,  and  inherit  estates,  were  infringements  of 
the  second  article  of  the  treaty  ;  that  the  ninth  clause  of 
the  bill,  imposing  upon  Catholics  new  oaths,  was  another 
manifest  breach  of  the  articles ;  for  that,  by  the  ninth 
article,  no  oath  is  to  be  administered  to,  nor  imposed 
upon,  such  Catholics  as  should  submit  to  government,  but 
the  oath  of  allegiance,  appointed  by  an  act  made  in  Eng- 
land in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of  their  late  majesties , 
that  the  clauses  for  prohibiting  Catholics  from  residing 
in  Limerick  or  Gahvay,  from  voting  at  elections  without 
taking  certain  new  oaths,  and  from  possessing  advowsons, 
were  likewise  infringements  on  the  treaty:  For,  if," 
concludes  Sir  Theobald  Butler,  "there  were  no  law  in 
force  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II  against  these  things,  as 
llicre  certainly  was  not,  and  if  the  Roman  CathoHcs  of 
this  kingdom  have  not  since  forfeited  their  right  to  the 
laws  that  then  were  in  force,  as  for  certain  they  have  not, 
then,  with  humble  submission,  all  the  aforesaid  clauses 
and  matters  contained  in  this  bill,  entitled  'An  act  to 
prevent  the  further  growth  of  Popery,'  are  directly 


In  the  Reign  of  Anne, 


511 


against  the  plain  words  and  true  interest  and  meaning 
of  the  said  articles,  and  a  violation  of  the  public  faith."  * 

In  consequence  of  the  passing  of  this  act,  and  of  those 
other  acts  of  a  similar  tendency  which  were  passed  in 
the  last  reign,  the  Catholics  were  deprived  of  all  those 
privileges  and  immunities  which,  they  trusted,  had  been 
secured  in  consequence  of  a  king  of  England  having 
bound  himself,  his  heirs,  and  successors,  to  fulfil  the 
conditions  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick.  In  place  of  being 
the  free  sut)jects  of  a  prince,  from  whom  they  were 
taught  to  expect  nothing  but  justice  and  mercy,  they 
were  made  the  slaves  of  every  one,  even  of  the  very 
meanest  of  their  Protestant  countrymen.  They  saw  the 
English  government,  on  whom  they  had  claims  for  protec- 
tion, directing,  against  their  own  parliament,  its  fanatic 
counsels,  and  confirming  its  crimes.  By  the  Treaty  of 
Limerick,  they  were  left  at  liberty  to  educate  and  to  act 
as  guardians  of  their  own  children ;  by  the  penal  laws, 
they  can  neither  send  them  to  be  educated  abroad,  nor 
have  them  educated  at  home,  nor  can  they  be  guardians 
of  their  own,  nor  of  the  children  of  any  other  persons. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  the  free  exercise  of  their 
religion  was  guaranteed  to  them  ;  by  the  penal  laws, 
their  chapels  are  shut  up,  their  priests  are  banished,  and 
hanged  if  they  return  home. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  their  noblemen  and  gentle- 
men were  especially  allowed  the  privilege  of  wearing 
arms,  and  the  whole  body  were  equally  entitled  to  the 
same  privilege,  because,  when  it  was  executed,  no  law 
existed  to  the  contrary;  by  the  penal  laws,  no  Catholic 
is  permitted  to  have  the  use  of  arms,  even  of  those 
who  were  specially  comprised  in  the  treaty,  except  a 
very  few. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  Catholics  might  intcr- 

•  Curry's  "Civil  Wars  of  Ireland,"  vol.  ii,  p.  387,  App.  xvi,  wherein  th« 
speech  of  Sir  T.  Butler  is  given  at  length. 


512 


PcnaL  Laws. 


marry  with  Protestants  ;  by  the  penal  laws,  this  privilege 
is  removed. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  the  profession  of  the  law 
•vas  open  to  them  ;  by  these  laws,  it  is  taken  from  them. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  the  Catholics  could  pur. 
:hase,  sell,  bequeath,  and  inherit  landed  property  ;  by 
'Jie  penal  laws,  they  can  neither  purchase,  sell,  be- 
queath, nor  inherit  landed  property,  take  annuities  for 
ives  secured  on  lands,  or  any  lease  of  land  for  more 
than  thirty-one  years  ;  nor  can  they  lend  money  on  mort- 
gage,* or  invest  it  in  public  securities. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  the  Catholics  were  left  in 
full  enjoyment  of  every  political  franchise,  except  that  of 
holding  offices  under  government,  and  of  becoming 
members  of  corporation  ;  by  the  penal  laws,  they  cannot 
vote  at  vestries,  serve  on  grand  juries,  act  as  constables, 
Dr  as  sheriffs,  or  under-sheriffs,  be  magistrates,  vote  al 
elections,  or  sit  in  parliament.+ 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  they  were  protected  from 
being  called  upon  to  take  anv  other  oaths  besides  the 
oath  of  allegiance  of  the  ist  William  and  Mary;  by  the 
penal  laws,  they  are  required  to  take  the  oaths  of  abjura- 
tion and  supremacy,  and  to  subscribe  declarations  against 
the  principal  tenets  of  their  religious  faith. 

By  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  they  were  acknowledged 
as  the  free  subjects  of  a  British  king;  by  the  penal  laws, 

*  By  a  construction  of  Lord  Hardwicke. 

t  "The  exclusion  from  the  law,  from  grand  juries,  from  sheriffships  and 
under-sherifTships,  as  well  as  from  freedom  in  any  corporation,  may  subject  ihem 
to  dreadful  hardships,  as  it  may  exclude  them  wholly  from  all  that  is  bene- 
ficial, and  expose  them  to  all  that  is  mischievous,  in  a  trial  by  jury.  Thu 
was  manifested  within  my  own  observation,  for  I  was  three  times  in  Ireland, 
from  the  year  1760  to  the  year  1767,  where  I  had  sufficient  means  cf  information 
concerning  the  inhuman  proceedings  (among  which  were  many  cruel  murflers, 
besides  an  infinity  of  outrages  and  oppressions,  unknown  before  in  a  civilized 
age)  v.hich  prevailed  during  that  period,  in  consequence  of  a  pretended  con- 
spiracy among  Roman  Catholics  against  the  king's  government.  ' — Burke's 
Letter  to  a  Peer  of  Ireland. 


PATRICK  SARSFIELD. 


Fn  the  Reign  Anne. 


lliey  are  placed  in  the  double  capacity  of  slaves  and 
enemies  of  their  Protestant  countrymen. 

Had  they  become  mere  slaves,  they  might  have 
expected  some  degree  of  humane  treatment;  but,  as  the 
policy  which  made  them  slaves  held  them  out  at  the 
same  time  as  the  natural  and  interested  enemies  of  their 
masters,  they  were  doomed  to  experience  all  the  oppres- 
sion of  tyranny,  without  any  of  the  chances,  that  other 
slaves  enjoy,  of  their  tyrants  being  merciful  from  feeling 
their  tyranny  secure. 

This  statement  will  be  sufficient  to  convince  those  who 
really  form  their  political  opinions  upon  principles  of 
justice,  that  the  penal  laws  never  should  have  been 
enacted,  and  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  upright  states- 
man to  promote  the  instant  repeal  of  the  whole  of  them, 
because  it  proves  a  solemn  compact  entered  into  between 
the  Catholics  and  the  English  government,  and  the 
breach  of  that  contract  by  the  English  government, 
notwithstanding  the  Catholics  fulfilled  their  part  of  the 
agreemiCnt.  How  can  men  gravely  and  zealously  con- 
tribute to  make  perpetual  the  political  disabilities  of  the 
Catholics,  which  were  the  base  and  perfidious  means 
adopted  by  a  wicked  legislature  to  influence  men's  con- 
sciences by  corrupt  motives,  and  tempt  and  bribe  them 
to  apostasy  ? 

As  there  are,  however,  no  small  number  of  politicians 
who,  though  they  would  think  it  praiseworthy  to  keep  a 
Catholic  in  a  state  of  slavery,  yet  would  be  scandalized 
at  the  bare  idea  of  breaking  faith  with  him  in  any  affairs 
of  barter,  particularly  if  the)^  had  already  received  from 
him  their  consideration,  and  that  a  valuable  one,  it  will 
be  necessary  to  make  some  further  observations  upon 
the  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  in  order  that  no 
one  may  have  a  pretext  on  which  he  can  escape  the  fair 
conclusion  that  ought  to  be  drawn  from  what  has  been 
advanced,  that  the  English  government  and  nation  are.  at 


Paial  Laws 


this  day,  bound  to  make  good  to  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
the  stipulations  contained  in  that  treaty.  For,  if  ever  there 
was  an  instance  in  which  the  consideration  that  formed 
the  basis  of  a  treaty  should  have  secured  a  liberal  and 
a  just  fulfilment,  it  was  the  instance  of  this  Treaty  of 
Limerick. 

In  the  course  of  the  three  campaigns  during  which  the 
war  lasted  in  Ireland,  the  English  army  had  been  defeated 
on  several  occasions:  in  the  North,  under  Schomberg ; 
before  Athlone,  under  Douglass;  and  before  Limerick, 
under  William  himself. 

The  victory  of  the  Boyne  was  the  result  of  the  personal 
failings  of  James,  not  of  any  deficiency  in  the  number  of 
his  army,  nor  of  any  want  of  courage  on  their  part.  Ex- 
change kings,"  said  the  Irish  officers,  "  and  we  will  once 
more  fight  the  battle."  St.  Kuth  had  w^on  the  battle  of 
Aughrim,  and  had  exclaimed,  in  an  ecstasy  of  joy,  Now 
will  I  drive  the  English  to  the  waL^s  of  Dublin,"  at  the 
moment  the  fatal  ball  struck  him.*  And  at  the  time  the 
garrison  of  Limerick  capitulated,  the  Irish  army  was  in 
a  condition  to  hold  out  at  least  another  campaign,  with  a 
good  prospect  of  being  able  to  restore  the  fallen  fortunes 
of  James.  The  besieging  army  had  made  no  impression 
on  the  principal  part  of  the  city  ;  it  was  inferior  in  num- 
bers to  that  of  the  garrison ;  winter  was  fast  approach- 
ing, and  it  so  happened  that  French  succors  were  at  this 
very  moment  on  the  coast:  yet  all  these  advantages  did 
the  Irish  army  forego,  in  consideration  of  the  terms  which 
were  granted  them  by  the  Treaty  of  Limerick. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  granting  these  terms,  the  English 
government  and  nation  obtained  advantages  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  themselves;  for,  as  long  as  James  had  a 
powerful  army  in  Ireland,t  and  nearly  one  half  of  the 


•  Leland,  b.  vi,  cap.  7. 

f  6,000  soldiers  actually  embarked  for  France  after  the  surrender  of  Lim- 
erick.   See  Dr.  Duigenan's  "  Demands  of  Romanists."  p.  60. 


» 


In  the  Reign  of  Anne,  5.5 

kingdom  under  his  dominion,  the  great  work  of  the 
Revolution  was  neither  accomplished  nor  secured.  The 
fair  way,  therefore,  of  judging  of  the  value  of  the  Treaty  of 
Limerick  to  England  is  to  consider  how  far  it  contributed 
to  promote  this  object.  If  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  in  any 
degree  led  to  the  estabUshment  of  the  Revolution,  the  vast 
importance  of  this  event  should  incline  the  people  of  Eng- 
land to  act  with  justice,  at  least,  toward  the  Catholics; 
but  if  their  submission  contributed  essentially  to  crown 
the  brilliant  efforts  of  the  friends  of  liberty  with  success, 
then,  indeed,  the  people  of  England  should  feel  zealous 
to  act  toward  the  Catholics,  not  on  a  cold  calculation  of 
what  was  merely  just  on  their  part,  but  with  that  kind- 
ness with  which  we  always  regard  those  who  have  pro- 
moted our  prosperity,  whether  intentionally  or  not.  That 
the  submission  of  the  Irish  Catholics  did  so  contribute 
to  complete  the  Revolution  is  plain,  from  the  means 
which  they  possessed  of  continuing  the  war,  from  the 
opportunity  it  afforded  William  to  bring  his  whole  forces 
to  bear  against  Louis,  and  from  the  termination  it  fixed  to 
the  hopes  and  the  conspiracies  of  the  adherents  of  James 
of  England.  Yet,  notwithstanding  the  great  conces- 
fions  which  the  Catholics  on  their  part  made,  by  their 
L,ubmission,  in  order  to  obtain  the  terms  of  the  Treaty 
of  Limerick,  and  the  great  advantages  which  the  Eng- 
lish nation,  on  the  other  hand,  acquired  by  it,  twelve 
years  only  elapsed  before  the  Catholics  were  deprived 
of  every  right  and  privilege  which  w^as  solemnly  guar- 
anteed to  them  by  that  treaty. 

Tlie  only  species  of  justification  that  could,  under  any 
circumstances,  have  been  brought  forward  for  acting  in 
this  manner  toward  the  Catholics,  would  have  been  the 
proof  of  the  forfeiture,  by  misconduct,  of  their  right  to 
the  fulfilment  of  the  treaty.  That  anything  w^hich  they 
did  prior  to  the  treaty  could  have,  in  justice,  any  in- 
Huence  on  measures  passed  subsequent  to  its  taking 


51 C  Penal  Laws 

place,  is  quite  impossible,  because  the  treaty  admitted 
their  acts  to  be  those  of  open  and  honorab.e* enemies, 
and  specifically  pardoned  them.* 

As  to  their  conduct  afterward,  even  their  most  in- 
veterate and  most  unprincipled  enemies  did  not  charge 
taem  with  a  single  transgression  against  the  state 
irom  the  year  1691  to  the  year  1704,  when  the  "act  to 
prevent  the  further  growth  of  Popery "  was  passed. 
And  it  is  very  plain  that  no  such  charge  could  be 
maintained,  from  the  paltry  attempt  that  was  made  in 
parliament  to  justify  this  act.  It  was  said  "  that  the 
Papists  had  demonstrated  how  and  where,  since  the 
making  of  the  articles  of  Limerick,  they  had  addressed 
the  queen  or  government,  when  all  other  subjects  were 
so  doing ;  and  that  any  right  which  they  pretended 
was  to  be  taken  from  them  by  the  bill,  was  in  their 
own  power  to  remedy,  by  conforming,  as  in  prudencfi 
they  ought  to  do,  and  that  they  ought  not  to  blame 

an\'  but  themselves."  t 

No  circumstance  can  possibly  illustrate  more  clearly 
the  innocence  of  the  Catholics  and  their  loyalty  and 
good  conduct,  from  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  to  the  passing 
of  this  act,  than  this  mockery  of  justification ;  nor  could 
anything  bring  to  our  understanding  an  accurate  compre- 
hension of  the  perfidy  and  baseness  of  that  government 

*  "  The  peculiar  situation  of  that  country,"  (Ireland^  says  Macpherson, 
'seems  to  have  been  overlooked  in  the  contest.  The  desertion,  upon  which 
the  deprivation  of  James  had  been  founded  in  England,  had  not  existed  in 
Ireland.  The  lord-lieutenant  had  retained  his  allegiance  ;  the  government 
was  uniformly  continued  under  the  naipe  of  the  prince  from  whom  the  ser- 
vrnts  of  the  crown  had  derived  their  commissions  ;  James  himself  had,  lor 
more  than  veventeen  months,  exercised  the  royal  function  in  Ireland.  He  wzj 
ce-tainly  de  facto,  if  not  de  jure,  king.  The  rebellion  of  the  Irish  must,  there- 
fore, be  founded  on  the  supposition  that  their  allegiance  is  transferable  by  the 
parliament  of  England.  A  speculative  opinion  can  scarcely  justify  tlie  punifli- 
ment  of  a  great  majority  of  a  people.  The  Irish  ought  to  have  been  coasiaercd 
«s  enemies,  rather  than  rebel  =^." — "  Hist.  Great  Britain." 
t  Curry,  "Debates  on  the  Popery  Laws."  vol.  ii.  y  191 


tJie  Reign  of  Anne. 


511 


and  of  that  parliament  more  distinctly  than  so  silly  an 
excuse  for  such  stern  and  crafty  oppressi'on. 

Though  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  was  now  violated  in 
every  point,  the  spirit  of  persecution  was  still  restless  and 
unsatisfied.  However  great  was  the  ingenuity  of  the 
legislators  who  produced  the  masterpiece  of  oppression, 
the  "act  to  prevent  the  further  growth  of  Popery,"  it 
was  found  that  another  act  was  still  wanting  to  explain 
and  amend  it.    Such  an  act  was  passed  in  the  year  1709.* 

The  first  clause  provides  that  no  Papist  shall  be 
allowed  to  take  any  annuity  for  life. 

The  following  is  the  third  clause,  every  word  of  which 
is  of  value,  in  order  to  show  the  vexations  to  which  the 
unfortunate  Catholics  of  Ireland  have  been  exposed  : — 

"  And  be  it  further  enacted,  by  the  authority  aforesaid, 
that  where  and  as  often  as  any  child  or  children  of  any 
Popish  parent  or  parents  hath  or  have  heretofore  pos- 
sessed or  conformed  him,  her,  or  themselves  to  the  Pro- 
testant religion  as  by  law  established,  and  enrolled  in  the 
High  Court  of  Chancery  a  certificate  of  the  bishop  of  the 
diocese  in  which  he,  she,  or  they  shall  inhabit  or  reside, 
testifying  his,  her,  or  their  being  a  Protestant,  and  con- 
forming him,  her,  or  themselves  to  the  Church  of  Ireland 
as  by  law^  established,  it  shall  and  ma}^  be  lawful  for  the 
High  Court  of  Chancery,  upon  a  bill  founded  upon  this  act, 
to  oblige  the  said  Papists,  parent  or  parents,  to  discover 
upon  oath  the  full  value  of  all  his,  her,  or  their  estate,  as 
well  personal  as  real,  clear,  over  and  above  all  real  in- 
cumbrance i  and  debts,  contracted  bona  fide,  for  value  or 
consideration,  before  the  enrolment  of  such  certificate, 
^  and  thereupon  to  make  such  order  for  the  support  and 
maintenance  of  such  Protestant  child  or  children,  by  the 
distribution  of  the  said  real  and  personal  estate  to  and 
among  such  Protestant  child  or  children,  for  the  present 
support  of  such  Protestant  child  or  children  :  and  also  to 

•  8  Anne,  c  3. 

m 


ol8  Penal  Laws 

and  for  the  portion  or  portions,  and  future  maintenance 
or  maintenances,  of  such  Protestant  child  or  children 
after  the  decease  of  such  Popish  parent  or  parents,  as 
the  said  court  shall  judge  fit." 

The  twelfth  clause  provides  that  all  converts  in  public 
employments,  members  of  parliament,  barristers,  attor- 
neys, or  officers  of  any  court  of  law,  shall  educate  their 
children  Protestants. 

By  the  fourteenth  clause,  the  Popish  wife  of  a  Papist, 
having-  power  to  make  a  jointure,  conforming,  shall,  if 
she  survive  her  husband,  have  such  provision,  not  ex- 
ceeding the  power  of  her  husband,  to  make  a  jointure, 
as  the  chancellor  shall  adjudge. 

By  the  fifteenth  clause,  the  Popish  wife  of  a  Papist, 
not  being  otherwise  provided  for,  conforming,  shall  have 
a  proportion  out  of  his  chattels,  notwithstanding  any  will 
or  voluntary  disposition,  and  the  statute  7  William  III,  6. 

The  sixteenth  clause  provides  that  a  Papist  teaching 
school  publicly,  or  in  a  private  house,  or  as  usher  to  a 
Protestant,  shall  be  deemed  and  prosecuted  as  a  Popish 
regular  convict. 

The  eighteenth  clause  provides  that  Popish  priests 
who  shall  be  converted  shall  receive  ^^30  per  annum,  to 
be  levied  and  paid  by  grand  juries. 

The  twentieth  clause  provides,  whimsically  enough, 
for  the  reward  of  discovering  Popish  clergy  and  school- 
masters, viz. : — 

For  discovering  an  archbishop,  bishop,  vicar-general, 
or  other  person  exercising  any  foreign  ecclesiastical 
jurisdiction,  £^0. 

For  discovering  each  regular  clergyman  not  regis- 
tered,  £20. 

For  discovering  each  Popish  schoolmaster  or  usher, 
;^io.*  

•  *'  The  average  annual  amount  of  premiums  for  transporting  priests,  for  six 
teen  years  preceding  1745,  was;^i27  17s,  4d.  The  premium  ceased  after  174$-" 
Newenham's  "  View  of  Ireland,"  p.  195. 


In  the  Reign  of  Anne, 


5:9 


Ihc  twenty-first  clause  empowers  two  justices  to  sum- 
mon any  Papist  of  eigliteen  years  of  age,  and,  if  he  shall 
refuse  to  give  testimony  where  and  when  he  heard  Mass 
celebrated,  and  who  and  what  persons  were  present  at 
the  celebration  of  it,  and  likewise  touching  the  residence 
and  abode  of  any  priest  or  Popish  schoolmaster,  to  com- 
mit him  to  jail,  without  bail,  for  twelve  months,  or  until 
he  shall  pay  £20. 

By  the  twenty-fifth  clause,  no  priest  can  officiate 
except  in  the  parish  for  which  he  is  registered  by  2 
Anne,  c.  7. 

The  thirtieth  clause  provides  for  the  discovery  of  all 
trusts  to  be  undertaken  in  favor  of  Papists,  and  enables 
any  Protestant  to  file  a  bill  in  chancery  against  any  per- 
son concerned  in  any  sale,  lease,  mortgage,  or  encum- 
brance, in  trust  for  Papists,  and  to  compel  him  to  discover 
thf*  same ;  and  it  further  provides  that  all  issues  to  be 
tried  in  any  action  founded  upon  this  act  shall  be  tried 
by  none  but  known  Protestants. 

The  thirty-seventh  clause  provides  that  no  Papist  in 
trade,  except  in  the  linen  trade,  shall  take  more  than 
two  apprentices. 

The  following  are  the  other  acts  passed  in  this  reign 
concerning  Catholics : — 

An  act  to  prevent  Popish  clergy  from  coming  into  the 
kingdom."  * 

"  An  act  for  registering  Popish  clergy,"  by  which  all 
the  Catholic  clergy  then  in  the  kingdom  were  required 
to  give  in  their  names  and  places  of  abode  at  the  next 
quarter-sessions.  By  this  act  they  are  prohibited  from 
employing  curates. f 

*'  An  act  to  amend  this  act."  f 

•  2  Anne,  c.  3. 
t  2  Anne,  c.  7. 

!  4  Anne,  c.  2.    See  also  6  Anne,  c  16.  sec.  6  ;  ami  S  Aniie,  c.  3,  sec.  26, 

CKceniiii^  pr .ests  aiarrviiig  rrotcstanis. 


520 


Penal  Laws 


"  An  act  to  explain  and  amend  an  act  to  prevent  Papists 
beinf^  solicitors  or  sheriffs,"  etc.* 

Clauses  are  introduced  into  this  act,  by  which  Cath- 
olics are  prevented  from  serving  on  grand  juries,  and 
by  which,  in  trials  upon  any  statute  for  strengthening 
the  Protestant  interest,  the  plaintiff  might  challenge  a 
Papist :  which  challenge  the  judge  was  to  allow. 

During  all  Queen  Anne's  reign  the  inferior  civil  offi- 
cers, by  order  of  government,  were  incessantly  harassing 
the  Catholics  with  oaths,  imprisonments  and  forfeitures, 
without  any  visible  cause  but  hatred  of  their  religious 
profession.  In  the  year  1708,  on  the  bare  rumor  of 
an  intended  invasion  of  Scotland  by  the  Pretender, 
forty-one  Roman  Catholic  noblemen  and  gentlemen 
were  imprisoned  in  the  Castle  of  Dublin ;  and  when 
they  were  afterward  set  at  liberty,  the  government  was 
so  sensible  of  the  wrong  done  to  them,  that  it  remitted 
their  fees,  amounting  to  ;^8oo.  A  custom  that  had 
existed  from  time  immemorial,  for  infirm  men,  women 
and  children  to  make  a  pilgrimage  every  summer  to  a 
place  called  St.  John's  Well,  in  the  county  of  Meath, 
in  hopes  of  obtaining  relief  from  their  several  infirmities, 
by  performing  at  it  certain  acts  of  penance  and  devotion, 
was  deemed  an  object  worthy  of  the  serious  considera- 
tion of  the  House  of  Commons,  who  accordingly  passed 
a  vote  that  these  sickly  devotees  "  were  assembled  in  that 
place  to  the  great  hazard  and  danger  of  the  public 
peace  and  safety  of  the  kingdom."  They  also  passed 
a  vote  on  the  17th  March,  1705,  ''that  all  magistrates, 
and  other  persons  whosoever,  who  neglected  or  omitted 
to  put  them  [the  penal  laws]  in  due  execution,  were 
betrayers  of  the  liberties  of  the  kingdom  ;"t  and  in  June, 
1705,  they  resolved  "  that  the  saying  and  hearing  of 
Mass  by  persons  who  had  not  taken  the  oath  of  abjuration, 
tended  to  advance  th'e  interest  of  the  Pretender;  and 


•  6  Anne.  c.  I 


t  "  Com.  Jour.,"  3,  289. 


In  the  Rcig^i  oj  Anne, 


that  such  judges  and  magistrates  as  wilfully  neglected 
to  make  diligent  inquiry  into  and  discover  such  wicked 
practices,  ought  to  be  looked  upon  as  enemies  to  her 
majesty's  government;"*  and  upon  another  occasion 
they  resolved  "  that  the  prosecuting  and  informing 
against  Papists  were  an  honorable  service  to  the  govern- 
ment "  t 

*  *'  Coin  Jour  "3.  319.  Tftk 


PENAL  LAWS 

IN  THE 

Reign  of  George  I. 

1714-1727. 

The  following  acts  of  parliament  were  passed  in  this 
reign,  for  the  purpose  of  strengthening  the  system  which 
had  been  adopted  by  William  and  Anne  for  preventing 
the  growth  of  Popery. 

*'  An  act  to  make  the  militia  of  this  kingdom  more 
useful."  * 

By  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  clauses  of  this  act,  the 
horses  of  the  Papists  may  be. seized  for  the  militia. 

By  the  fourth  and  eighteenth  clauses,  Papists  are  to 
pay  double  toward  raising  the  militia. 

By  the  sixteenth  clause,  Popish  housekeepers  in  a 
city  are  to  find  Protestant  substitutes. 

**  An  act  to  restrain  Papists  from  being  high  or  petty 
constables,  and  for  better  regulating  the  parish  watches-''^ 

"  An  act  for  the  more  effectual  prevention  of  fraudulent 
conveyances,  in  order  to  multiply  votes  for  electing 
members  to  serve  in  parliament,"  etc.if 

By  the  seventh  clause  of  this  act,  no  Papist  can  vote 
ftt  an  election  unless  he  takes  the  oath  of  allegiance  and 
abjuration. 

'*  An  act  for  better  regulating  the  town  of  Galwa)%  and 
for  strengthening  the  Protestant  interest  therein."  § 

•  2  George  I,  c.  9. 

t  111.,  c.  19.    This  act  expired  in  three  years,  and  was  not  renewed, 
t  lb.  $  4  George  I,  c.  15. 


Penal  Laws  in  the  Reign  of  George  T. 


523 


"  An  act  for  better  regulating  the  corporation  of  the 
city  of  Kilkenny,  and  strengthening  the  Protestant  inter- 
est therein."  * 

"  An  act  by  which  Papists, resident  in  towns,  who  shall 
not  provide  a  Protestant  watchman  to  watch  in  their 
room,  shall  be  subject  to  certain  penalties."  f 

By  12  George  I,  c.  9,  sec.  7,  no  Papist  can  vote  at  any 
vestry,  held  for  the  purpose  of  levying  or  assessing 
money  for  rebuilding  or  repairing  parish  churches. 

These  acts  of  parliament  originated  in  the  same  spirit 
of  persecution  which  disgraced  the  reigns  of  William 
and  Anne,  and  were,  like  the  penal  laws  against  the 
Catholics  of  those  reigns,  palpable  violations  of  the 
Treaty  of  Limerick. 

Though  a  glimmering  of  toleration  had  found  its  way 
mto  the  councils  of  England,  and  given  rise  to  "  an 
act  for  exempting  Protestant  dissenters  of  this  country 
[Ireland]  from  certain  penalties  to  which  they  were 
subject,"  the  Catholics  were  excluded,  by  a  particular 
clause,  from  any  benefit  of  it.  And  though  it  was  in 
this  reign  that  the  first  act  %  passed  for  discharging  all 
persons  in  offices  and  employments  from  all  penalties 
which  they  had  incurred  by  not  qualifying  themselves 
pursuant  to  *  an  act  to  prevent  the  further  growth  of 
Popery,*  "  the  favor  conferred  by  it  was  a  favor  conferred 
on  Protestant  dissenters  only,  as  no  Catholic  had 
been  placed  in  any  public  office  since  the  passing  of  that 
penal  law. 

The  loyalty  of  the  Catholics  was  in  this  reign  put  to  a 
complete  trial  by  the  Scotch  rebellion  of  1715.  If,  after 
having  fought  three  campaigns  in  support  of  James's 
pretensions  to  the  throne  of  Ireland  ;  after  having  ex- 
perienced the  infractions  of  every  part  of  the  Treaty 
of  Limerick,  and  been  exposed  to  a  code  of  statutes  by 
which  they  were  totally  excluded  from  the  privileges  of 


"*  4  George  I,  c.  16. 


t  6  George  I,  c.  10 


X  lb.,  c.  9. 


524 


Penal  Laws  in  the  Reign  of  George  I, 


i!k'  coiisu'tution  ;  and  if,  after  they  had  become  subject 
'*  to  the  worst  of  all  oppressions,  the  persecution  ot 
private  society  and  private  manners,"*  they  had  em- 
barked in  the  cause  of  the  invader,  their  conduct  would 
have  been  that  of  a  high-spirited  nation,  goad^ed  into  a 
state  of  desperation  by  their  relentless  tormentors  ;  and, 
if  their  resistance  had  been  successful,  their  leaders 
would  have  ranked  among  the  Tells  and  Washingtons 
of  modern  history. 

But  so  far  from  yielding  to  the  natural  dictates  of 
revenge,  or  attempting  to  take  advantage  of  what  was 
passing  in  Scotland  to  regain  their  rights,  they  did  not 
follow  the  example  of  their  rulers,  in  violating,  upon  the 
first  favorable  opportunity,  a  sacred  and  solemn  com- 
pact; and  thus  they  gave  the  strongest  testimony  that 
they  had  wholly  given  up  their  former  hopes  of  estab- 
lishing a  Catholic  prince  upon  the  throne.  Their  loyalty 
was  not,  however,  a  protection  to  them  against  the 
oppressions  of  their  Protestant  countrymen.  The  penal- 
ties for  the  exercise  of  their  religion  were  generally  and 
rigidly  inflicted.  Their  chapels  were  shut  up,  theii 
priests  dragged  from  their  hiding-places,  hurried  into 
prisons,  and  from  thence  sent  into  banishment,  f 

•  Burke's  Letter  to  a  Peer  of  Ireland. 

t  "  In  1732  a  proclama'.ion  was  issued  against  the  Roman  Catholic  clergy,  and 
the  degree  of  violence  with  which  it  was  enforced  made  many  of  the  old  natives 
look  seriously,  as  a  last  resource,  to  emigration.  Bishop  O'Rorke  retired  from 
Bailinagare,  and  the  gentlemen  of  that  neighborhood  had  no  clergyman  for  a 
considerable  time  to  give  them  Mass,  but  a  poor  old  man,  one  Pcndergasl,  w  lie. 
before  day-dawn  on  Sunday,  crept  into  a  cave  in  the  parish  of  Baslick,  ai  d 
waited  there  for  his  congregation,  in  cold  and  wet  weather,  hunger  and  thiist, 
to  preach  to  them  patience  under  their  afflictions,  and  perseverance  in  theii 
principles,  to  offer  up  prayers  for  theii  persecutors,  and  to  arm  ihem  with  resig- 
nation to  the  will  of  heaven  in  their  misfortunes.  The  cave  is  called  I'oll-uu 
Aifrin,  or  Mass-cave,  to  this  day,  and  is  a  melancholy  monument  of  tlie  piety 
of  our  ancestors." — "  Mem.  of  the  Life  and  Writings  of  the  late  Charles  O'Con- 
nor," vol.  i,  p.  179. 


PENAL  LAWS 

IN  THE 

Reign  of  George  II. 

1 727-1 760. 

In  this  reign  the  following  disabilities  were  imposed 
upon  the  Catholics  : — 

By  the  i  George  II,  c.  9,  sec.  7,  no  Papist  can  vote  at 
an  election  without  taking  the  oath  of  supremacy.  How- 
ever  great  the  oppression  which  the  Catholics  had  ex- 
perienced during  former  reigns,  this  measure  completed 
their  entire  exclusion  from  the  benefits  of  the  constitution, 
and  from  the  opportunity  of  regaining  their  former  just 
rights. 

It  was  because  this  privilege  had  begun  to  operate 
amongst  Protestants  in  a  manner  very  favorable  to  the 
Catholics,  and  to  bring  about  a  feeling  of  regret  for  theii 
sufferings,  and  a  coalition  between  the  two  parties  to 
oppose  the  influence  of  the  English  government,  ar 
a  common  cause  of  grievances,  that  Primate  Boulter 
advised  the  ministers  to  pass  this  law. 

His  principle  of  government  for  Ireland  was  to  up 
hold  the  English  interest  by  the  divisions  of  the  inhabi- 
tants ;  and  on  this  occasion  it  induced  him  to  adopt  the 
desperate  resolution  of  disfranchising,  at  one  stroke 
above  five-sixths  of  its  population.* 

By  the  first  clause  of  i  George  II,  c.  30,  clerks,  bar- 

*  Primate  Boulter,  in  his  letter  of  this  year  to  the  Archbisliop  of  Canterbury 
(vol.  i,  p.  210),  says  :  "There  are  probably  in  this  kingdom  five  Papists,  3t  least, 
to  one  Protestant."  See  note  B,  Appendix,  upon  the  present  amount  of  the 
population,  and  the^proportion  of  Catholics  to  Protestants. 


526 


Penal  Laws 


risters  and  citizens  occupying  other  stations  in  life,  are 
required  to  take  the  oath  of  supremacy. 

By  the  second  clause,  all  converts  are  bound  to  edu- 
cate their  children  as  Protestants. 

By  7  George  II,  c.  5,  sec.  12,  barristers  or  solicitors, 
marrying-  Papists,  are  deemed  Papists,  and  made  sub- 
ject to  all  penalties  as  such. 

By  7  George  II,  c.  6,  no  convert  can  act  as  a  justice 
of  the  peace  whose  wife,  or  children  under  sixteen  years 
of  age,  are  educated  Papists. 

The  13  George  II,  c.  6,  is  an  act  to  amend  former  act? 
for  disarming  Papists. 

By  the  sixth  clause  of  this  act,  Protestants  educati<ig 
their  children  as  Papists  are  macle  subject  to  the  samt 
disabilities  as  Papists  are. 

By  9  George  II,  c.  3,  no  person  can  serve  on  a  pettj 
jury,  unless  seized  of  a  freehold  of  £^  per  annum,  or. 
being  a  Protestant,  unless  possessed  of  a  profit  rent  of 
;^I5  per  annum,  under  a  lease  for  years. 

By  9  George  II,  c.  6,  sec.  5,  persons  robbed  by  priva- 
teers, during  war  with  a  Popish  prince,  shall  be  reim- 
bursed by  grand  jury  presentment,  and  the  money  levied 
upv-^  the  goods  and  lands  of  Popish  inhabitants  only. 

The  19  George  II,  c.  5,  is  an  act  for  granting  a  duty 
on  hawkers  and  peddlers  to  the  Society  of  Protestant 
Charter  Schools.* 

•  The  following  is  ihe  preamble  of  ihe  charter  for  erecting  these  schools  : 
*' George  II  by  the  grace  of  Go:l,  etc.  Forasmuch  as  we  have  receive  1 
information,  by  the  petition  of  the  lord  primate,  lord  chancellor,  archbishops, 
noblemen,  bishops,  judges,  gentry  and  clergy,  of  our  kiugdom  of  Ji  eland, 
lhat  in  many  parts  of  the  said  kingdom  there  are  greot  tracts  c-f  land  ahno^t 
entirely  inhabited  by  Papists,  who  are  kept  by  their  clergy  in  great  ignorance 
of  the  true  religion,  and  bred  up  in  great  dissatisfaction  to  the  government  ; 
lhat  the  erecting  of  English  Protestant  schools  in  those  places  is  absolutely 
necessary  for  their  conversion;  that  the  English  parish  schools  already  estab- 
lished  are  not  sufficient  for  that  purpose,  nor  can  the  residence  of  th? 
parochial  clergy  only  fully  answer  that  end."  Catholics  are  excluded  by  thii 
?liarter  fr  jm  being  subscriber.<»  to,  or  members  of,  this  society, — See  Report  of 


Ih  the  Reign  of  George  11, 


527 


The  19  George  II,  c.  13,  is  an  act  to  annul  all  marriages 
between  Protestants  and  Papists,  or  celebrated  by  Popish 
priests.* 

By  the  23  George  II,  c.  10,  sec.  3,  every  Popish  priest 
who  shall  celebrate  any  marriage  contrary  to  12  George  1, 
c.  3,  and  be  therefor  convicted,  shall  be  hanged. 

Of  these  last  acts,  and  of  Lord  Chesterfield's  adminis- 
tration, Mr.  Burke  gives  the  following  account:"  This 
man,  while  he  was  duping  the  credulity  of  the  Papists  with 
fine  words  in  private,  and  commending  their  good  behav- 
ior during  a  rebellion  in  Great  Britain,  as  it  well  deserved 
to  be  commended  and  rewarded,  was  capable  of  urging 
penal  laws  against  them  in  a  speech  from  the  throne,t  and 

Committee  of  Irish  Plouse  of  Commons,  14  Appendix,  1788  ;  Ir.  Com,  Jour.,  12 
Appendix,  p.  8io. 

The  children  admitted  into  the  schools  are  orphans,  or  the  children  of  Cath- 
olics, and  other  poor  natives  of  Ireland,  who,  from  their  situation  in  life,  are 
not  likely  to  educate  them  as  Protestants.  Thej  are  apprenticed  into' Protest- 
ant families  at  the  age  of  fourteen  years,  at  a  fee  of  seven  guineas  with  each 
female, 'and  five  guineas  with  each  male.  The  society  gives  a  portion  of  five 
pounds  to  every  person  educated  in  these  schools,  upon  his  or  her  marrying  a 
Protestant 

In  September,  1806,  the  number  of  children  in  the  schools  was  2,130. 

The  funds  of  the  society  consist  of  lands,  funded  property,  and  an  annual 
grant  of  parliament;  they  amount  to  about  ^34,000  per  annum.  From  the 
year  1 754,  31  George  II,  c.  I,  to  the  ist  January,  1808,  there  has  been  granted 
by  parliament  to  this  society  ;^49i,326,  besides  certain  duties  on  hawkers  and 
pedlers,  from  1754  to  1786. 

By  the  23  George  II,  c.  2,  the  society  may  appoint  persons  to  take  u{ 
beggar  children,  and  send  them  to  the  charter  schools,  and,  when  old  enough, 
bind  them  apprentices. 

By  the  same  act,  sec.  8,  a  child  received  with  the  parents*  consent  is  deemed 
&  child  of  the  public,  and  may  be  disposed  of,  though  claimed  by  the  parents. 

•  The  first  acts  on  this  head  are  6  Anne  c.  16,  sec.  6,  and  8  Anne,  c.  3,  sec.  26. 

t  "  The  measures  that  have  hitherto  been  taken  to  prevent  th2  growth  of 
Popery  have,  I  hope,  had  some,  and  will  still  have  a  greater  effect ;  however,  T 
leave  it  to  your  consideration  whether  nothing  further  can  be  done,  either  by 
new  laws  or  by  more  effectual  execution  of  those  in  being,  to  secure  the  nmion 
against  the  greater  number  of  Papists,  whose  speculative  errors  would  only 
ieserve  pity,  if  their  pernicious  influence  upon  civil  society  did  not  both  require 
\nd  authorize  restraint." — Speech  to  both  Houses  of  Parliament,  October  S, 
1745:  Com.  Jour.,  7,  64. 


Pcncd  Lazvi 


of  stimulating  with  provocatives  the  weary  and  half- 
exhansted  bigotry  of  the  parhament  of  Ireland.  They 
set  to  work,  but  they  were  at  a  loss  what  to  do,  for  they 
had  already  almost  gone  through  every  contrivance 
which  could  waste  the  vigor  of  their  country  ;  but,  after 
much  struggle,  they  produced  a  child  of  their  old  age, 
the  shocking  and  unnatural  act  about  marriages,  which 
tended  to  finish  the  scheme  for  making  the  people  not  only 
two  distinct  parties  forever,  but  keeping  them  as  two 
distinct  species  in  the  sam.e  land.  Mr.  Gardiner's  human- 
ity was  shocked  at  it,  as  one  of  the  worst  parts  of  that 
truly  barbarous  system,  if  one  could  well  settle  the  pre- 
ference, where  almost  all  the  parts  were  outrages  on  tne 
rights  of  humanity  and  the  laws  of  nations.""^ 

On  the  conduct  of  the  Catholics  during  the  Scotch 
rebellion  of  1745,  fortunately  for  them,  but  greatly  to  the 
shame  of  those  who  accuse  them  of  being  actuated  by 
religious  principles  inconsistent  with  their  duty  to  their 
sovereign,  there  is  on  record  an  irrefutable  dobument. 
In  the  year  1762,  upon  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords 
about  the  expediency  of  raising  five  regiments  of  Cath- 
oHcs  for  the  King  of  Portugal,  the  Primate,  Doctor  Stone, 
in  answer  to  the  usual  objections  that  were  urged  on  all 
occasions  against  the  good  faith  and  loyalty  of  that  body, 
declared  in  his  place,  ''that  in  the  year  1747,  after  that 
rebellion  was  entirely  suppressed,  happening  to  be  in 
England,  he  had  ar  opportunity  of  perusing  all  the 
papers  of  the  rebels  and  their  correspondents,  which 
were  seized  in  the  custody  of  Murray,  the  Pretender's 
secretary ;  and  that,  after  having  spent  much  time,  and 
taken  great  pains  in  examining  them,  not  without  some 
share  of  the  then  common  suspicion  that  there  might  be 
some  private  understanding  and  intercourse  between 
them  and  the  Irish  Catholics,  he  could  not  discover  the 
lenst  trace,  hint,  or  intimation  of  such  intercourse  or 


•  1  eiter  to  a  Peer  in  Ireland. 


the  Reign  of  George  IL 


529 


correspondence  in  them,  or  of  any  of  the  iLttci 's  favor- 
ing  or  abetting,  or  having  been  so  much  as  made  ac- 
ouainted  with,  the  designs  or  proceedings  of  the  rebels. 
And  what,"  he  said,  "  he  wondered  at  most  of  all  was, 
that  in  all  his  researches  he  had  not  met  with  any  pas- 
sage in  any  of  the  papers  from  which  he  could  infer 
that  either  their  Holy  Father,  the  Pope,  or  any  of  his 
cardinals,  bishops,  or  other  dignitaries  of  that  Church, 
or  any  of  the  Irish  clergy,  had,  either  directly  or  indi- 
rectly, encouraged,  aided,  or  approved  of  the  commenc- 
ing or  carrying  on  of  that  rebellion."'* 

Those  of  the  clergy  of  England  who  lately  took  so 
active  a  part  in  exciting  and  upholding  the  infamous 
outcry  of  "  No  Popery,"  will  do  well  to  compare  this 
declaration  of  Primate  Stone  with  the  followinsr  state- 
ment  of  the  conduct  of  the  Irish  clergy,  immediately 
upon  the.  breaking  out  of  the  Scotch  rebellion.  They 
will  learn  how  easy  it  is,  even  for  the  grave  profession 
of  the  Church,  to  commit  errors,  and  to  pollute  its  sacred 
character,  by  embarking  in  the  controversy  of  party 
politics :  "  The  bishops  wrote  pastoral  letters  to  their 
respective  diocesans,  to  excite  the  members  of  the  Estab- 
lished Church  to  enforce  all  the  penal  statutes,  and,  with 
equal  wisdom  and  charit}'  and  a  ready  obedience,  did  the 
clergy  follow  the  example  and  directions  of  their  supe-^ 
riors,  and  apply  the  whole  power  of  their  body  to  support 
the  lanatic  politics  of  the  day.  In  their  inflammatory 
sermons  they  excited  religious  animosity,  by  reviving, 
the  m.ost  shocking  circumstances  of  the  Irish  Rebellion 
of  164 1,  and  of  the  Gunpowder  Plot  in  England,  in  \6o^. 
These  transactions  were  studiously  aggravated,  and  the 
crimes,  whether  real  or  supposed,  committed  by  Cath^- 
olics,  dead  more  than  a  century  before,  were  imputed'  to 
all  those  who  survived  of  the  same  religious  persuasion. "f 

*  Curry's  "  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars  of  Ireland,"  vol.  ii,  p.  261. 
tlh.,  p.  259. 


ZZO  Pciial  Laws 

If  the  conduct  of  the  bishops  and  clergy  was  improper, 
on  account  of  its  inconsistency  with  those  principles  of 
universal' charity  thit  the  Gospel  inculcated,  it  was  still 
more  S(«)  from  there  being  no  grounds,  even  of  suspicion, 
that  the  Catholics  were  disloyal.  Besides,  it  was  inde- 
cent, in  the  last  degree,  for  those  who  were  endowed 
by  the  state  foi  the  purpose  only  of  discharging  the 
functions  of  a  religious  profession,  to  degrade  their 
sacred  character  by  assuming  the  duties  of  partisan 
magistrates,  and  embarking  in  all  the  tumult  and  passion 
of  political  persecution.  The  conduct  of  the  Catholic 
priests  at  this  period  forms  a  contrast  by  no  means 
creditable  to  those  who  teach  the  superior  tolerance  of 
the  Protestant  religion,  and  ground  their  animosities 
against  the  Catholics  on  the  supposed  illiberality  which 
controls  their  principles.  This  oppressed  and  indigent 
body  of  men,  instead  of  taking  offence  at  the  proceedings 
of  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the  Established  Church, co- 
operated with  their  Protestant  brethren  to  maintain  order 
and  tranquillity.  Their  pastoral  letters,  public  discourses 
from  the  pulpit,  and  private  admonitions,  were  equally 
directed  for  the  service  of  the  orovernment."* 

Yet  these  clergy  were  the  members  of  that  Church, 
tlie  principles  of  which  are  slated  to  be  of  such  a  nature 
by  many  of  the  English  clergy  as  to  render  it  absolutely 
impossible  for  a  Catholic  to  be  a  good  subject. 

On  the  26th  September,  1757,  the  Duke  of  Bedford  was 
sworn  in  as  lord-lieutenant.  His  open  declarations  of 
liberal  sentiments  toward  the  Catholics,  and  some  com- 
munications, that  were  made  for  the  first  time  since  the  ' 
passing  of  the  "  ferocious  act  of  Anne"  to  prevent  the 
growth  of  Popery,  of  an  intention  to  repeal  some  part 
of  the  penal  laws,  encouraged  them  to  hope  for  a  change 
in  the  system  of  Irish  government.  Ten  days  after  his 
arrival,  the  Catholic  clergy  of  Dublin,  influenced  by  these 

^  QiestsrfielJ's  \yorks.  vol.  i,  p.  150.    Ir.  Ed. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  II,  5^1 

communications,  read  the  following  to  their  respective 
congregations.  It  forms  the  first,  and  a  very  important, 
document,  in  proof  of  the  suflferings,  the  resignation,  and 
the  loyalty  of  the  Catholic  body.  It  was  one  peculiarly 
deserving  of  attention,  as  being  well  calculated  to  re- 
move the  ignorance  and  prejudices  of  those  who  still 
persist  in  calumniating  the  Catholic  clergy  of  Ireland, 
and  representing  them  as  enemies  to  the  king  and  con- 
stitution : — 

Exhortation  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Clergy  of  Dublin, 
read  from  their  altars  on  the  2d  October,  1757. 

**  It  is  now  time.  Christians,  that  you  return  your  most 
grateful  thanks  to  the  Almighty  God,  who,  after  visiting 
you  with  a  scarcity  which  approached  near  to  a  famine, 
has  been  graciously  pleased,  like  a  merciful  father,  to  hear 
your  prayers,  and  feed  you  with  a  plentiful  harvest ; 
nor  ought  you  to  forget  those  kind  benefactors  who,  in 
the  severest  times,  mindful  only  of  the  public  good, 
generouslv  bestowed,  without  any  distinction  of  persons, 
those  large  charities  by  which  thousands  were  pre- 
served, who  otherwise  must  have  perished,  the  victims 
of  hunger  and  poverty. 

"  We  ought  especially  to  be  most  earnest  in  our 
thanks  to  the  chief  governors  and  magistrates  of  the 
kingdom,  and  of  this  city  in  particular,  who,  on  this  oc- 
casion, proved  the  fathers  and  saviors  of  the  nation. 

"  But  as  we  have  not  a  more  effectual  method  of 
showing  our  acknowledgments  to  our  temporal  gov- 
ernors, than  by  an  humble,  peaceful,  and  obedient 
behavior  as  hitherto,  we  earnestly  exhort  you  to 
continue  in  the  same  happy  and  Christian  disposition, 
and  thus,  b}'  degrees,  you  will  entirely  efface  in  their 
minds  those  evil  impressions,  which  have  been  conceived 
so  much  to  our  prejudice,  and  industriously  propagated 
by  our  enemies. 

"  A  series  of  more  than  sixty  years  spent,  with  pious 


532 


Penal  Laws 


resignation,  under  the  hardships  of  very  severe  penal 
laws,  and  with  the  greatest  thankfuh:iess  for  the  lenity 
and  moderation  with  which  they  were  executed,  ever 
since  the  accession  of  the  present  royal  family,  is  certainly 
a  fact  which  must  outweigh,  in  the  minds  of  all  unbiassed 
persons,  any  misconceived  opinions  of  the  doctrines  and 
tenets  of  our  holy  Church. 

You  know  that  it  has  always  been  our  constant  prac- 
tice, as  ministers  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  inspire  you  with  the 
greatest  horror  for  thefts,  frauds,  murders,  and  the  like 
abominable  crimes,  as  being  contrary  to  the  laws  of  God 
and  nature,  destructive  to  civil  society,  condemned  b} 
our  most  holy  Church,  which,  so  far  from  justifying  them 
on  the  score  ot  religion,  or  any  other  pretext  whatsoever, 
delivers  the  unrepenting  authors  of  such  criminal  prac- 
tices over  to  Satan. 

*'  We  are  no  less  zealous  than  ever  in  exhorting  you  to 
abstain  from  cursing,  swearing,  and  blaspheming:  detest- 
able vices  to  which  the  poorest  sort  of  our  people  are 
most  unhappily  addicted,  and  which  must,  at  one  time  or 
another,  bring  down  the  vengeance  of  Him  upon  you  in 
some  visible  punishment,  unless  you  absolutely  refrain 
from  them. 

It  is  probable  that  from  hence  some  people  have  taken 
occasion  to  brand  us  with  this  infamous  calumny,  that 
we  need  not  fear  to  take  false  oaths,  and  consequently  to 
perjure  ourselves.  As  if  we  believed  that  any  power 
upon  earth  could  authorize  such  damnable  practices,  or 
grant  dispensations  for  this  purpose  ! 

How  unjust  and  cruel  this  charge  is,  you  know  by 
our  instruction  to  you  both  in  public  and  private,  in 
which  we  have  ever  condemned  such  doctrines  as  false 
and  impious.  Others,  likewise,  may  easily  know  it  from 
the  constant  behavior  of  numbers  of  Roman  Catholics, 
who  have  given  the  strongest  proofs  of  their  abhorrence 
of  those  tenets,  by  refusing  to  take  oaths,  which,  however 

V 

\ 

\ 
\ 

\ 


In  the  Reign  of  George  II. 


533 


conducive  to  their  temporal  interest,  appeared  to  them 
entirely  repugnant  to  the  principles  of  their  religion. 

*'  We  must  now  entreat  you,  dear  Christians,  to  offer  up 
your  most  fervent  prayers  to  the  Almightv  God  who 
holds  in  His  hands  the  hearts  of  kings  and  princes :  beseech 
Him  to  direct  the  counsels  of  our  rulers,  to  inspire 
them  with  sentiments  of  moderation  and  compassion 
toward  us. 

"  We  ought  to  be  more  earnest  at  this  juncture  in  our 
supplications  to  heaven,  as  some  very  honorable  persons 
have  encouraged  us  to  hope  for  a  mitigation  of  the  penal 
laws.  Pray,  then,  the  Almighty  to  give  a  blessing  to  these 
their  generous  designs,  and  to  aid  their  counsels  in  such 
a  manner  that,  whilst  they  intend  to  assist  us,  like  kind 
benefactors,  they  may  not,  contrary  to  their  intentions,  by 
mistaking  the  means,  most  irretrievably  destroy  us. 

**  To  conclude :  be  just  in  3'our  dealings,  sober  in  your 
conduct,  religious  in  your  practices,  avoid  riots,  quarrels, 
and  tumults,  and  thus  you  will  approve  yourselves  good 
citizens,  peaceable  subjects,  and  pious  Christians." 

Instead,  however,  of  a  repeal  taking  place  of  any  of 
the  penal  laws,  rumors  began  very  generally  to  prevail 
of  its  being  the  intention  of  the  government  to  proceed 
to  carry  into  effect  a  bill  that  had  been  prepared  by  the 
former  administration  for  altering  the  law  respecting 
the  registry  of  the  clergy.  The  existing  law,  which 
passed  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne,  had  been  found  too 
penal  to  admit  of  its  being  carried  into  execution,  and 
thus,  by  an  excess  of  tyranny,  was  the  object  of  it  wholly 
defeated.  In  the  place  of  this  law,  it  had  been  proposed 
to  pass  one  with  such  provisions  that  it  should,  like  the 
other  penal  laws,  execute  itself ;  and  upon  this  project 
being  now  revived,  the  Cathol'.cs,  for  the  first  time  since 
1704,  took  measures,  as  a  body,  to  indicate  their  religious 
and  civil  principles.  Mr.  Charles  O'Connor,  the  cele- 
brated Irish  scholar  and  antiquarian,  with  the  assistance 


534 


Penal  Laws 


of  Dr.  Curry,  author  of  the  "  Review  of  the  Civil  Wars 
of  Ireland,"  and  Mr.  Wyse,  of  Waterford,  exerted  them 
selves  with  good  effect  in  persuading  their  suffering 
countrymen  of  the  necessity  of  coming  forward  to  induce 
their  rulers  to  admit  them  into  a  participation  of  the 
Privileges  of  the  constitution.  As  a  groundwork  of  their 
iiture  labor,  Dr.  O'Keefe,  the  titular  Bishop  of  Kildarc, 
proposed,  at  a  meeting  held  at  Lord  Timbleton's,  a 
declaration  of  the  principles  of  their  Church,  as  far  as 
they  could  bear  upon  the  civil  duties,  to  be  signed  by 
the  chiefs  of  their  body,  and  published  as  an  answer  to 
the  misrepresentations  and  calumnies  they  had  labored 
under  since  the  reformation  of  the  national  religion.  This 
declaration  was  unanimously  adopted  ;  it  was  signed  by 
many  clergymen  and  gentlemen  of  rank  and  property 
and  sent  to  Rome  as  the  act  and  deed  of  the  Irish  Cath- 
olics.   It  is  as  follows  : — 

Whereas,  certain  opinions  and  principles,  inimical  to 
good  order  and  government,  have  been  attributed  to 
the  Catholics,  the  existence  of  which  we  utterly  deny  ; 
and  whereas  it  is  at  this  tmie  peculiarly  necessary  to 
remove  such  imputations,  and  to  give  the  most  full  and 
ample  satisfaction  to  our  Protestant  brethren,  that  wf 
hold  no  principles  whatever,  incompatible  with  our  dut_y 
as  men  or  as  subjects,  or  repugnant  to  liberty,  whether 
political,  civil,  or  religious  : 

"  Now  we,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  for  the  removal  of 
all  such  imputations,  and  in  deference  to  the  opinion  of 
many  respectable  bodies  of  men  and  individuals  among 
our  Protestant  brethren,  do  hereby,  in  the  face  of  our 
country,  of  all  Europe,  and  before  God,  make  this  our 
deliberate  and  solemn  declaration  : — 

"  I.  We  abjure,  disavow,  and  condemn  the  opinion 
that  princes,  excommunicated  by  the  pope  and  council,  or 
by  any  ecclesiastical  authority  whatsoever,  may  there- 
fore be  deposed  or  murdered  by  their  subjects  or  anjr 


In  the  Reign  of  George  II. 


535 


other  person.  We  hold  such  doctiine  in  detestation  as 
wicked  and  impious,  and  we  declare  that  we  do  not 
believe  that  either  the  pope,  with  or  without  a  general 
council,  or  any  prelate  or  priest,  or  any  ecclesiastical 
power  whatsoever,  can  absolve  the  subjects  of  this 
kingdom,  or  auy  of  them,  from  their  allegiance  to  His 
Majesty,  King  George  III,  who  is,  by  authority  of  par- 
liament, the  lawful  king  of  this  realm. 

"2.  We  abjure,  condemn  and  detest,  as  unchristian 
and  impious,  the  principle  that  it  is  lawful  to  murder, 
destroy,  or  anyways  injure  any  persons  whomsoever, for, 
or  under,the  pretence  of  being  heretics  ;  and  we  declare 
solemnly  before  God  that  we  believe  that  no  act  in  itself 
unjust,  immoral,  or  wicked,  can  be  justified  or  excused 
by^  or  under,  pretence  or  color  that  it  was  done  either  for 
the  good  of  the  Church,  or  in  obedience  to  any  ecclesi- 
astical power  whatsoever. 

"  3.  We  further  declare  'that  we  hold  it  as  an  unchris- 
tian and  impious  principle  that  no  faith  is  to  be  kept  with 
heretics.  The  doctrine  we  detest  and  reprobate,  not 
only  as  contrary  to  our  religion,  but  as  destructive  of 
morality,  of  society,  and  even  of  common  honesty ;  and 
it  is  our  firm  belief  that  an  oath  made  to  any  person,  not 
of  the  Catholic  religion,  is  equally  binding  as  if  it  were 
made  to  any  Catholic  whomsoever. 

"4.  We  have  been  charged  with  holding,  as  an  article 
of  our  belief,  that  the  pope,  with,or  without,  the  authority 
of  a  general  council,  or  by  certain  ecclesiastical  powers, 
can  acquit  and  absolve  us  before  God  from  our  oath  of 
allegiance,  or  even  from  the  just  oaths  and  contracts 
entered  into  between  man  and  man. 

"  Now  we  do  utterly  renounce,  abjure,  and  deny  that 
we  hold  or  maintain  any  such  belief,,  as  being  contrary 
to  the  peace  and  happiness  of  society,  inconsistent  with 
morality,  and,  above  all,  repugnant  to  the  true  spirit  of 
the  Catholic  religion. 


Penal  Laws 


"  5.  We  do  further  declare  that  we  do  rn)t  believe 
that  the  Pope  of  Rome,  or  any  other  prince,  prelate, 
state,  or  potentate,  hath,  or  ought  to  ha\e,  any  temporal 
or  civil  jurisdiction,  power,  superiority,  or  preeminence, 
directly  or  indirectly,  within  this  realm. 

6.  After  what  we  have  renounced,  it  is  immaterial,  in 
a  political  light,  what  may  be  our  opinion  of  faith  on 
other  points  respecting  the  pope;  however,  for  greater 
satisfaction,  w^e  declare  that  it  is  not  an  article  of  the 
Catholic  faith,  neither  are  we  hereby  required  to  believe 
or  profess,  that  the  pope  is  infallible,  or  that  we  are 
bound  to  obey  any  order,  in  its  own  nature  immoral, 
though  the  pope,  or  any  ecclesiastical  power,  should 
issue  or  direct  such  order,  but,  on  the  contrary,  we  hold 
that  it  would  be  sinful  in  us  to  pay  any  respect  or 
obedience  thereto. 

*'  7.  We  further  declare  that  we  do  not  believe  that  any 
sin  whatsoever  committed  by  us  can  be  forgiven  at  the 
mere  will  of  any  pope,  or  of  any  priest,  or  of  any  person 
or  persons  whomsoever;  but  that  sincere  sorrow  for 
past  sins,  a  firm  and  sincere  resolution,  as  far  as  may  be 
m  our  power,  to  restore  our  neighbor's  property  or 
character,  if  we  have  trespassed,  or  unjustly  injured 
either ;  a  firm  and  sincere  resolution  to  avoid  future 
guilt,  and  to  atone  to  God,  are  previous  and  indispensable 
requisites  to  establish  a  well-founded  expectation  of 
forgiveness  ;  and  that  any  person  who  receives  absolution 
without  these  previous  requisites,  so  far  from  obtaining 
thereby  any  remission  of  his  sins,  incurs  the  additional 
guilt  of  violating  a  sacrament. 

**  8.  We  do  hereby  solemnly  disclaim  and  forever 
renounce  all  interests  in,  and  title  to,  all  forfeited  lands 
resulting  from  any  rights,  or  supposed  rights,  of  our 
ancestors,  or  any  claim,  title,  or  interest  therein  ;  nor  do 
we  admit  anv  title  as  a  foundation  of  ris^ht,  which  is  not 
established  and  acknowledged  by  the  laws  of  the  realm 


In  the  Reign  of  George  II 


537 


as  they  now  stand.  We  desire^  further,  that  whenever 
the  patriotism,  liberality,  and  justice  of  our  countrymen 
shall  restore  to  us  a  participation  in  the  electiv^e  franchise, 
no  Catholic  shall  be  permitted  to  vote  at  any  election 
for  members  to  serve  in  parliament  until  he  shall  pre- 
viously take  an  oath  to  defend  to  the  utmost  of  his  power 
the  arrangement  of  property  in  this  country,  as  estab- 
lished by  the  different  acts  of  attainder  and  settlement. 

**9.  It  has  been  objected  to  us  that -we  wish  to  subvert 
the  present  Church  establishment,  for  the  purpose  of 
substituting  a  Catholic  establishment  in  its  stead.  Now, 
we  do  hereby  disclaim,  disavow,  and  solemnly  abjure 
any  such  intention ;  and  further,  if  we  shall  be  admitted 
into  any  share  of  the  constitution,  by  our  being  restored 
to  the  right  of  elective  franchise,  we  are  read}^,  in  the 
most  solemn  manner,  to  declare  that  we  will  not  exercise- 
that  privilege  to  disturb  and  weaken  the  establishment 
of  the  Protestant  religion  or  Protestant  government  in 
this  country." 

Though  this  declaration  did  not  produce  any  change 
of  conduct  on  the  part  of  the  English  government  at  that 
time,  its  failure  can  be  attributed  only,  to  the  obstinacy 
with  which  the  principle  of  governing  Ireland,  upon  the 
system  of  separate  interests  between  the  Protestants  and 
Catholics,  was  adhered  to.  This  declaration,  though  at 
first  ineffectual,  was  republished  in  1792,  and  may  surely 
be  expected  at  least  to  open  the  eyes  of  mankind  to  the 
true  character  of  the  Irish  Catholics,  and  to  secure  to 
them  the  reward  which  it  deserves :  the  unlimited  con- 
fidence of  their  king  and  fellow-subjects,  and  the  entire 
restoration  of  their  constitutional  rights. 

In  the  year  1759,  ^vhen  it  was  known  that  a  French 
force,  under  the  command  of  Conflans,  was  collected  to 
invade  Ireland,  the  conduct  of  the  Catholics  on  this,  as  it 
had  uniformly  been  on  similar  occasions,  was  loval  in  the 
extreme.    Mr.  O'Connor.  Dr.  Curry,  and  Mr.  Wyse  had, 


538 


Penal  Laws 


some  time  Vjefore,  in  1757,  succeeded  in  establishing  a  gen- 
eral committee  of  the  Catholic  body,  formed  by  delegates 
of  parishes,  and  the  principal  Catholic  nobility  and  gentry. 
As  soon  as  this  invasion  was  announced  in  parliament 
b}'  a  message  from  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  this  committee 
was  summoned  to  meet ;  and  Mr.  O'Connor  having  sub- 
mitted to  it  the  following  address  to  the  lord-lieutenant, 
it  was  unanimously  approved  of : — 

May  it  please  your  grace  : 

"  We,  his  majesty's  dutiful  and  faithful  subjects,  the 
Roman  Catholic  gentlemen,  merchants,  and  citizens  of 
Dublin,  do,  with  the  greatest  respect,  approach  the  illus- 
trious representative  of  the  best  of  kings  with  our  hearty 
congri*  tulations  on  those  glorious  successes,  by  sea  and 
land,  which  have  attended  his  majesty's  arms,  in  the 
prosecution  of  this  just  and  necessary  war. 

"  We  gratefully  acknowledge  the  lenity  extended  to 
us  by  his  most  sacred  majesty,  and  by  his  royal  father, 
of  happy  memory.  Our  allegiance,  may  it  please  your 
grace,  is  confirmed  by  affection  and  gratitude,  our  relig- 
ion commands  it,  and  it  shall  be  our  invariable  rule 
firmly  and  inviolably  to  adhere  to  it. 

We  are  called  to  this  duty  at  the  present  time  in 
particular,  when  a  foreign  enemy  is  meditating  des- 
perate attempts  to  interrupt  the  happiness  and  disturb 
the  repose  which  these  kingdoms  have  so  long  enjoyed 
under  a  monarch  who  places  his  chief  glory  in  proving 
himself  the  common  father  of  all  his  people;  and  we 
sincerely  assure  your  grace  that  we  are  ready  and 
willing,  to  the  utmost  of  our  abilities,  to  assist  in 
supporting  his  majesty's  government  against  all  hostile 
attempts  whatsoev^er. 

"  Whenever,  my  lord,  it  shall  please  the  Almighty 
that  the  legislative  power  of  this  realm  shall  deem  the 
peaceable  conduct  of  his  majesty's  Catholic  subjects  in 


« 


In  the  Reign  of  George  II,  ^33 

Ireland,  for  many  3'ears  past,  an  object  worthy  of  its 
favorable  attention,  we  humbly  hope  means  may  be 
devised  to  render  so  numerous  a  bod}^  more  useful 
members  to  the  community,  and  more  strengthening 
friends  to  the  state,  than  they  possibly  could  have  hither- 
to been  under  the  restraint  of  the  many  penal  laws 
against  them.  We  most  humbly  beseech  your  grace  to 
represent  to  his  majesty  these  sentiments  and  resolutions 
of  his  majesty's  faithful  subjects,  the  Roman  Catholics  of 
this  metropolis,  who  sincerely  wish  that  a  peace  honor- 
able to  his  majesty,  and  advantageous  to  his  kingdom, 
may  be  the  issue  of  the  present  war,  and  that  the  people 
of  Ireland  may  be  long  governed  by  your  grace,  a  viceroy 
in  whom  wisdom,  moderation,  and  justice  are  so  emi- 
nently conspicuous." 

On  that  occasion,  also,  wealthy  individual  members  ol 
the  Catholic  body  offered  to  accommodate  the  govern- 
ment with  large  sums  of  money  in  case  of  necessity,  to 
support  the  Protestant  Establishment  against  all  its 
enemies;  and  the  Catholics  of  the  city  of  Cork,  in  a 
body,  presented  an  address  to  the  lord-lieutenant, 
expressing  their  loyalty  in  the  warmest  terms  of  assur- 
ance. They  professed  the  warmest  indignation  at  the 
threatened  invasion  of  the  kingdom  by  an  enemy  vainly 
flattered  with  the  imaginary  hope  of  assistance  in  Ire- 
land from  the  former  attachment  of  their  predecessors. 
Th^y  assured  his  grace  that  such  schemes  were  altogether 
inconsistent  with  their  principles  and  intentions,  and 
that  they  would,  to  the  utmost  exertion  of  their  abilities, 
with  their  lives  and  fortunes,  join  in  the  defence  and 
support  of  his  majesty's  royal  person  and  government 
against  all  invaders  whatsoever.* 

These  circumstances  are  proof  of  no  ordinar}'-  fidelity 
in  the  Irish  Catholics  to  the  house  of  Brunswick.  They 


*Sinoilelt's  "  Hislury  of  England,"  vol.  iv,  p.  69, 


540        Penal  Laws  in  iJu  Reign  of  Georgf  II, 


were,  however,  of  no  avail  in  mitigating  the  rigor 
of  the  magistracy  in  the  execution  of  the  prnal  laws,  or 
in  inducing  the  British  government  to  repeal  any  part 
of  them,  for  the  reign  of  George  II  closed,  wkhout  any 
grateful  acknowledgments  being  made  to  them  fo.  the 
steadiness,  the  moderation,  and  the  loyalty  wLkH  thp.f 
had  displayed  on  so  many  trying  occasions. 


PENAL  LAWS 

IN  THE 

Reign  of  George  III. 

1 760-1 820. 

Though  the  first  measure  of  this  reign,  the  royal 
recommendation  to  Parliament  to  make  the  judges  inde- 
pendent of  the  crown,  bespoke  the  determination  of  his 
majesty  to  respect  the  feehngs  and  confirm  the  rights 
and  liberties  of  his  subjects,  still  the  unfortunate  Cath- 
olics of  Ireland  were  doomed  to  suffer  under  new  pains 
and  penalties. 

In  the  year  1776  an  act  of  parliament  was  passed,*  by 
which  one  or  more  justices  of  the  peace,  and  all  sheriffs 
and  chief  magistrates  of  cities  and  towns  corporate,  with- 
in their  respective  jurisdictions  may,  from  time  to  time, 
as  well  by  night  as  by  day,  search  for  and  seize  all 
arms  and  ammunition  belonging  to  any  Papist  not  en- 
titled to  keep  the  same,  or  in  the  hands  of  any  person  in 
trust  for  a  Papist ;  and  for  that  purpose  enter  any  dwell- 
ing-house, out-houses,  office,  field,  or  other  place  belong- 
ing to  a  Papist,  or  to  any  other  person  where  such 
magistrate  has  reasonable  cause  to  suspect  any  such  arms 
♦r  Lunniunition  to  be  concealed,  and  on  suspicion,  after 
senich,  may  summon  and  exam.ine  on  oath  the  person 
suspected  of  such  concealment. 

13 V  the  seventeenth  clause  of  this  act,  Papists  refusing 

*  i!;anil  i6  George  TIT,  c.  il,  sec  15. 


512 


Penal  Laws 


to  deliver  up  or  declare  such  arms  as  they,  or  any  with 
their  privity,  have  in  their  possession,  or  hindering'  their 
deUvery,  or  refusing  to  discover  on  oath,  or,  without 
cause, neglecting  to  appear  on  summons  to  be  examined 
before  a  magistrate  concerning  the  same,  shall,  on  con- 
viction, be  punished  by  fine  and  imprisonment,  or  such 
corporal  punishment  of  pillory  or  whipping  as  the  court 
shall,  i^i  their  discretion,  think  proper. 

In  the  year  1782  a  clause  was  introduced  into  an  act* 
by  which  no  person  shall  be  admitted  into  the  society  of 
King's  Inns  as  a  student,  who  shall  not,  at  the  time  of 
his  admission,  be  a  Protestant. 

In  the  same  year  an  act  was  passed,  by  the  third 
clause  of  which  all  statutes  in  England  or  Great  Britain, 
and  all  such  clauses  and  provisions  contained  in  any 
statute  there  made  as  relate  to  the  taking  of  any  oath  or 
oaths,  or  making  or  subscribing  any  declaration  in  Ire- 
land, or  to  an}^  penalty  or  disability  of  omitting  the 
same,  shall  be  accepted,  used,  and  executed  in  Ireland. 

This  act  referred  to :  first,  the  English  f  act  of  3  Wil- 
liam and  Mary,  c.  2,  sees,  i,  4,  5,  6,  7,  by  which  the  oath 
of  supremac)'  mentioned  in  2  Elizabeth,  i,  c.  i,  is  abro- 
gated, and  a  new  oath  of  supremacy  is  required  to  be 
taken  by  all  persons  admitted  into  Ireland  to  hold  an}^ 
civil  or  military  office,  and  by  members  of  both  houses 
of  parliament ;  second,  to  the  English  act  of  I  Anne, 
Stat.  2,  c.  17,  requiring  all  persons  to  take  the  oath  of 
abjuration  prescribed  by  the  English  acts  of  13  William 
III,  c.  6,  and  i  Anne,  stat.  i,  c.  22 ;  third,  to  the  English 
act  of  6  George  III,  c.  53,  sec.  2,  declaring  that  from  the 
1st  August,  1776,  the  oath  of  abjuration,  by  this  act  ap- 
pointed to  be  taken  in  Great  Britain,  shall  be  the  oath  of 
abjuration  to  be  taken  in  Ireland. 

Though  this  clause  of  the  21  and  22  George  III, 

•  21  and  22  George  III,  c  32,  sec.  2. 

f  lb.,  c.  48,  sec  3.  ' 


In  tJie  Reign  of  George  III. 


c.  48,  has  attracted  very  little  public  attention,  it  was 
of  no  less  import  than  that  of  being  the  first  lega.  ex- 
clusion of  Catholics  from  sitting  in  the  Irish  parliament. 
They  had  been  excluded  de  facto  by  their  voluntary 
submission  to  the  English  act  of  3  William  and  Mary,  but 
not  de  jure  till  this  act  of  21  and  22  George  III,  which 
made  the  act  of  3  William  and  Mary,  just  mentioned, 
bindinof  in  Ireland.*  • 

This  circumstance,  which  has  always  been  overlooked, 
even  by  the  Catholics  themselves,  proves  how  readily  they 
have  been  inclined,  at  all  times,  to  submit  to  the  autliority 
of  government ;  and  it  also  proves  how  unfounded  those 
arg-uments  are  which  maintain  that  the  exclusion  of  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  from  parliament  is  a  principle  on 
which  the  family  of  his  majesty  was  placed  upon  the 
throne.  It  completely  overturns  the  system  of  erroneous 
reasoning  concerning  the  coronation  oath,  which  of 
late  had  been  so  common;  it  reduces  the  question  to 
this  simple  point:  whether  the  king  can  conscientiously 
place  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  in  the  same  condition, 
with  respect  to  sitting  in  parliament,  in  which  they  had 
continued  till  the  twenty-second  year  of  his  own  reign. 

In  1785  an  act  was  passed*  for  granting  ;^4,ooo,  to  be 
expended  in  apprentice  fees,  to  such  tradesmen  or  manu- 

•  The  first  Irish  parliament  summoned  by  William  ha\-ing  met  on  ihe  5th 
October,  1692,  immediately  after  the  election  of  a  speaker,  and  his  being  seated, 
*'  A  motion  'was  made  for  the  reading  of  a  late  act  of  parliament,  made  in  ^ 
England  in  the  third  year  of  their  majesties'  reign,  entitled  'An  act  for  abro- 
gating the  oath  of  supremacy  in  Ireland,  and  appointing  other  oaths  ;'  upon 
reading  whereof  the  house  immediately  proceeded  to  the  swearing  of  their 
members,  and.  they  being  sworn,  the  house  adjourned."  (Irish  Com.  Jour.,  vol.  2, 
p.  9.)  *'  It  does  not  appear  by  the  journals  that  any  objection  was  made  to  this 
motion,  or  that  any  Catholic  had  been  elected  to  serve  in  this  parliament, 
notwithstanding  this  English  act  was  not  binding  in  Ireland  ;  nor  is  any 
mention  made  by  the  historians  of  that  day  concerning  the  grounds  upon 
which  the  Catholics  submitted  to  it.  The  submissive'forbearance  of  tiiem  un- 
rcr  a  most  severe  extension  of  the  penal  code  is  the  only  point  relating  to 
them  which  has  arrested  their  notice." — Plowden,  vol.  I,  p.  198. 

♦  25  George  IIJ,  c.  48,  sees.  Ii,  12, 


544 


Penal  Laws 


iacturers,  as  should  take  children  from  charter  schools 
or  the  Foundling  Hospital ;  but  it  was  expressly  pj^o- 
vided  that  the  children  should  be  bound  to  none  but 
Protestant  tradesmen  and  manufacturers. 

The  whole  code  of  the  penal  statutes  against  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  is  now  laid  before  the  view  of  the 
reader,  under  which  they  so  long  and  so  patiently 
languished, — statutes  unexampled  for  their  inhumanity, 
their  unwarrantableness  and  their  impcflicy,  which  were 
adopted  to  exterminate  a  race  of  men  already  crushed 
and  broken  by  the  longest  series  of  calamities  which 
one  nation  had  ever  the  opportunity  of  inflicting  upon 
another. 

They  were  framed  against  Christians  under  the 
pretence  of  securing  religion  •  they  were  the  work  of 
Protestants,  than  whom  no  sect  has  cried  out  more 
loudly  against  persecution  when  Protestants  were  the 
martyrs;  they  were  sanctioned  by  a  nation  who  owed 
its  liberties,  and  by  monarchs  who  owed  their  throne,  to 
a  solemn  covenant  that  such  penal  disabilities  should 
never  exist.*  Here,  may  we  not  inquire  if  the  English 
nation,  legislature  and  king,  have  not  a  duty  to  fulfil 
toward  the  Irish  Catholics  even  greater  than  that  of 
justice, — a  duty  of  compunction,  of  repentance,  and 
atonement?  The  faith  of  a  solemn  treaty  made  with 
them  has  been  broken  :  it  is  not  enough  that  it  has  been 
in  part  reestablished,  it  ought  to  be  religiously  fulfilled. 
They  have  been  ruled  with  tyranny :  it  is  not  enough 
that  the  tyranny  should  be  relaxed,  it  should  cease 
altogether.  They  have  been  driven  from  the  pale  of  the 
constitution  :  it  is  not  enough  that  they  should  be  allowed 
to  pass  its  barriers,  they  should  range  free  and  uncon- 
trolled through  all  its  rights. 

lhat  this  system  of  slow  political  torture  was  not 
warranted  by  any  alleged  delinquency  on  their  part,  is 

•  See  tlxe  articles  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick. 


MASSACRE  AT  DROGHEDA, 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


5:5 


notorious;  for  it  was  devised  and  perfected  in  times  of 
profound  tranquillity.  That  they  were  not  deservinof 
even  of  the  suspicion  of  being  disloyal  subjects,  is  proved 
by  their  signal  forbearance,  which  has  preserved  the 
empire  from  the  calamitous  consequences  of  such  flagi- 
tious misgovernment ;  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  they 
fully  merited  the  confidence  and  protection  of  the 
legislature,  no  fair  and  candid  mind  can  deny,  when  it 
gives  to  their  conduct,  in  strictly  adhering  to  the 
stipulations  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  and  to  their 
allegiance  to  the  house  of  Brunswick,  the  just  value  to 
which  it  is  entitled.  • 

Having  now  reached  the  utmost  point  to  which  the 
penal  statutes  extended,  which  seems  to  be  as  far  as 
human  invention,  quickened  by  mixed  feelings  of  alarm, 
of  bigotry,  and  of  pride,  could  go,  we  should  not  be 
excusable  on  general  grounds  if  wc  neglect  to  record 
their  effects. 

But  there  is  even  a  nearer  interest  in  this  examination. 
At  a  period  when  the  state  of  Ireland  so  much  occupies 
the  attention  of  the  legislature  and  of  the  public  ;  when 
it  is  admitted  on  all  sides  that  the  prosperity  and 
security  of  England  herself  must  rise  or  fall  with  the 
prosperity  and  security  of  Ireland,  and  when  the  events 
of  each  succeeding  day  prove  the  absolute  necessity  of 
som.e  measures  to  ameliorate  her  condition,  and  show  that 
things  cannot  go  on  as  they  are,  without  the  inevitable 
destruction  of  the  British  empire,  it  will  be  of  great 
importance  to  be  able  to  form  an  accurate  opinion  upon 
the  effects  which  were  the  result  of  the  penal  statutes. 

It  appears  from  unquestionable  authority  that,  during 
the  interval  that  elapsed  between  the  surrender  of  Lim- 
erick and  the  total  infraction  of  the  treaty  of  1704,  by 
the  **  act  to  prevent  the  further  growth  of  Popery,"  the 
toleration  which  the  Catholics  experienced  by  virtue  oi 
that  treaty,  produced  its  natural  consequences.  The 


54G 


Pciial  Laws 


security  they  enjoyed  restored  industry,  and  plentv  of 
all  things;  useful  arts  were  introduced:  the  land  was 
cultivated,  and  a  fine  island,  reduced  to  a  desert  by  the 
late  war,  soon  assumed  a  new  face.  In  fact  Ireland  was 
never  happier  than  during  this  interval  of  religious  tolera- 
tion.* Of  the  effects  of  the  penal  laws,  in  entirely  revers- 
ing the  order  of  things.  Lord  Taffe,  in  his  valuable  tract 
on  Irish  affairs,  gives  the  following  description :  "  Those 
penalties  and  niterdicts  (by  the  laws  of  Anne)  had  their 
natural  effects  in  the  dispeopling  greatly  the  three  fine 
provinces  wherein  the  bulk  of  Catholics  reside.  They 
took  their  effect  in  putting  a^stop  to  the  cultivation  began 
in  Kins:  William's  reiscn.  No  sooner  were  the  Catholics 
excluded  from  durable  and  profitable  tenures,  than  they 
commenced  graziers,  and  laid  aside  agriculture;  they 
ceased  from  draininsr  and  enclosing-  their  farms  and  build- 
ing  good  houses,  as  occupations  unsuited  to  the  new  part 
assigned  them  in  our  national  economy.  They  fell  to 
wasting  the  lands  they  were  virtually  forbid  to  cultivate, 
the  business  of  pasturage  being  compatible  with  such  a 
conduct,  and  requiring,  also,  little  industry  and  less  labor 
in  the  manaorement." 

In  the  year  1723  the  wretchedness  of  the  people  of 
Ireland  was  so  great,  that  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  in  a 
speech  from  the  throne,  recommended  parliament  to 
take  measures  for  reheving  them.  The'  distress,  how- 
ever, continued  ;  and  in  a  petition  presented  to  the  House 
of  Commons,  in  the  same  year,  by  the  woollen  manu- 
facturers, they  say  that  the  woollen  manufacture  of 
this  kingdom,  which  is  confined  to  our  own  consumption, 
has  of  late  been  so  considerably  lessened  that  several 
thousand  families  have  been  forced  to  besT  alms  and  char- 
ity  of  good  Christians,  and  that  a  collection  had  lately 

been  made  throughout  the  whole  city  to  relieve  them/'f 

 .  . — ■  1  . 

•  "Observations  on  the  affairs  of  Ireland,"  by  Lord  Taffe,  p.  4. 
\  "  Com.  Jour.,"  vol.  iii,  p.  24. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III,  547 


Primate  Boulter,  in  a  letter  of  the  25th  of  March,  1732, 
to  the  Duke  of  Newcastle,  bears  testimony  to  this 
wretched  state  of  Ireland.  He  says:  Since  I  came  here 
in  the  year  1725,  there  was  almost  a  famine  amongst  the 
poor;  last  year  the  dearness  of  corn  was  such,  that  thou- 
sands of  families  quitted  their  habitations  to  seek  bread 
elsewhere,  and  many  hundreds  perished."^ 

Again,  on  the  23d  of  November,  1728,  he  says,  in 
writing-  to  the  duke:*'l  am  sorry  I  am  obliged  to  give 
your  grace  so  melancholy  an  account  of  the  state  of  the 
kingdom  as  I  shall  in  this  letter.' 

But  one  of  the  most  pernicious  effects  of  these  penal 
laws  was  the  emigration  of  the  principal  Catholic  fami- 
lies to  the  continent.  They  carried  with  them  what 
would  otherwise  have  been  the  materials  of  the  civili- 
zation, tranquillity  and  prosperity  of  their  own  country  ; 
they  left  the  mass  of  the  Catholic  population  without 
the  influence  of  men  of  education  and  property  to  direct 
and  control  their  conduct;  and  in  the  place  of  serving 
their  own  native  land,  they  filled,  with  the  highest  credit 
to  themselves,  the  situation  of  statesmen  and  generals 
in  those  nations  which  were  hostile  to  the  interests  of 
Great  Britain. 

Of  the  visible  effect  these  laws  had  produced  in  their 
avowed  objects  of  propagating  the  Protestant  religion, 
and  promoting  the  national  prosperity,  it  is  impossible  to 
give  a  more  able  or  a  more  accurate  description  than 
the  following,  by  Mr.  Arthur  Young,  who  was  in  Ire- 
land at  the  period  we  now  treat  of :  + 

"  While  property  lay  exposed  to  the  practices  of  power, 
the  great  body  of  the  people,  who  had  been  stripped  of 
their  all,  were  more  enraged  than  converted  ;  they 
adhered  to  the  persuasion  of  their  forefathers,  with  the 
steadiest  and  most  determined  zeal,  while  the  priests, 
actuated  by  the  spirit  of  a  thousand  inducements,  made 


•  Letters,  p.  226. 


t  1778. 


PtJial  Laws 


pn:)selytes  among  the  common  Protestants,  in  defiance  of 
every  danger.  And  the  great,  glaring  fact  yet  remains, 
and  is  even  admitted  by  the  warmest  advocates  for  the 
laws  of  discovery,  that  the  established  religion  has  not 
gained  upon  the  Catholic  in  point  of  numbers ;  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  latter  has  been  rather  on  the  increase. 
Public  lists  have  been  returned  from  the  several  dio- 
ceses which  confirm  this  fact,  and  the  intelligence  I  re- 
ceived on  my  journey  spoke  the  same  language. 

As  it  is  the  great  body  of  the  common  people  that 
form  the  strength  of  a  country  Avhen  willing  subjects, 
and  its  weakness  when  ill-affected,  this  fact  is  a  decision 
of  the  question :  after  seventy  years'  undisturbed  oper- 
ation, the  system  adopted  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  has 
failed  in  this  great  aim,  and  meets  at  this  day  with  a  more 
numerous  and  equailjr  determined  body  of  Catholics 
than  it  had  to  oppose  when  first  promulgated.  Has  not 
the  experience  of  every  age  and  every  nation  proved 
that  the  effect  is  invariable  and  universal  ? 

"  Let  a  religion  be  what  it  may,  and  under  whatever 
circumstances,  no  system  of  persecution  ever  yet  had 
any  other  effect  than  to  confirm  its  professors  in  their 
tenets,  and  spread  their  doctrines,  instead  of  restraining 
them.  The  great  plea  of  the  Roman  Catholic  priests, 
and  their  merit  with  their  congregations,  are  the  dan- 
gers they  hazard  and  the  persecutions  they  suffer  for  the 
sake  of  their  faith, — arguments  that  have  and  ever  will 
have  w^eight,  while  human  nature  continues  formed  of 
its  present  materials. 

"  But  if  these  exertions  of  a  succession  of  ignorant  legis- 
lators have  failed  continually  in  propagating  the  religion 
of  government,  much  more  have  they  failed  in  the  great 
object  of  natural  prosperity.  The  only  considerable 
manufacture  in  Ireland,  which  carries  in  all  parts  the 
ippearance  of  industry,  is  the  linen  ;  and  it  ought  never 
to  be  forgotten  that  this  is  solelv  confined  to  the  Protcs- 


In  tJu  Reign  of  George  III. 


549 


tant  parts  of  the  kingdom.  The  poor  Catholics  in  the 
south  of  Ireland  spin  wool  generally,  but  the  purchase 
of  their  labor,  and  the  whole  worsted  trade,  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  Quakers  of  Clonmel,  Carrick,  Bandon,  etc. 
The  fact  is,  the  professors  of  that  religion  are  under 
such  discouragements  that  they  cannot  engage  in  any 
trade  which  requires  both  industry  and  capital.  If  they 
succeed  and  make  a  fortune,  what  are  they  to  do  with 
it  ?  They  can  neither  buy  land,  nor  take  a.  mortgage,  nor 
even  fine  down  the  rent  of  a  lease.  Where  is  there  a 
people  in  the  world  to  be  found  industrious  under  such 
circumstances  ? 

"  It  is  no  superficial  view  I  have  taken  of  this  matter 
in  Ireland ;  and  being  at  Dublin  at  the  time  a  very 
trifling  part  of  these  laws  was  agitated  in  parliament,  I 
attended  the  debate,  with  my  mind  open  to  conviction, 
and  an  auditor  for  the  mere  purpose  of  information.  I 
have  conversed  on  the  subject  with  most  distinguished 
characters  of  the  kingdom,  and  I  cannot,  after  all,  but  de- 
clare that  the  scope,  purport,  and  aim  of  the  laws  of  dis- 
covery, as  executed,  are  not  against  the  Catholic  religion, 
which  increases  under  them,  but  against  the  industry  and 
property  of  whosoever  professes  that  religion. 

"  In  vain  has  it  been  said  that  consequence  and  power 
follow  poverty,  and  that  the  attack  is  made  in  order  to 
wound  the  doctrine  through  its  property.  If  such  was 
the  intention,  I  reply,  that  seventy  years'  experience 
proves  the  folly  and  futility  of  it.  Those  laws  have 
crushed  all  the  industry  and  wrested  most  of  the  prop- 
erty from  the  Catholics,  but  the  religion  triumphs:  it 
'  is  thought  to  increase.  Those  who  have  handed  about 
calculations  to  prove  a  decrease,  admit,  on  the  face  of 
them,  that  it  will  require  four  thousand  years  to  make 
converts  of  the  whole,  supposing  the  work  to  go  on 
ill  future  as  it  has  in  the  past  time.  But  the  whole  pre- 
tence is  an  affront  to  common-sense,  for  it  implies  that 


550 


Penal  Laws 


you  will  lessen  a  religion  by  persecuting  it.  All  history 
and  experience  condemn  such  a  proposition. 

'*  The  system  pursued  in  Ireland  has  had  no  other 
tendency  but  that  of  driving  out  of  the  kingdom  all  the 
personal  wealth  of  -the  Catholics,  and  prohibiting  their 
industry  within  it.  The  face  of  the  country, — every  object, 
in  short,  which  presents  itself  to  the  eye  of  a  traveller, 
tells  him  how  efifectually  this  has  been  done.  1  urge  it, 
not  as  an  argument — the  whole  kingdom  speaks  it  as  a  fact. 
We  have  seen  that  this  conduct  has  not  converted  the 
people  to  the  religion  of  government,  and  instead  of 
adding  to  the  internal  security,  it  has  endangered  it. 
If,  therefore,  it  does  not  add  to  the  national  prosperity, 
for  what  purpose  but  that  of  private  tyranny  could  it 
have  been  embraced  and  persisted  in?  Mistaken  ideas  of 
•  private  interest  account  for  the  actions  of  individuals; 
but  what  could  have  influenced  the  British  government 
to  permit  a  system  which  must  inevitably  prevent  the 
island  from  even  becoming  of  the  importance  which  nature 
intended?"* 

Of  the  state  of  the  agriculture  of  Ireland  at  this  period 
a  tolerably  accurate  idea  may  be  formed  from  the  words 
of  the  same  author  :  **  I  have  reason  to  believe  that  five 
pounds  sterling  per  English  acre,  expended  all  over 
Ireland,  which  amounts  to  ;^S8,34i,i36,  would  not  more 
than  build,  fence,  plant,  drain  and  improve  that  country, 
to  be  upon  a  par,  in  those  respects,  with  England."  f 
^  The  prices  also  of  the  produce  of  land  afford  proof 
of.  the  general  poverty  of  the  kingdom.  In  1778  butter 
sold  for  5jd.  per  lb.,  mutton  23d.,  beef  2id..  pork  2jd., 
veal  3jd.,  a  fat  turkey  for  lofd.,  a  goose  for  S^d.,  and 
a  chicken  for  2^d.t 

From  these  several  authorities  upon  the  state  of  Ireland 
m  1778,  much  information  may  be  collected  concernmg 


•  "Young's  Tour,"  vol.  ii,  p.  135.  English  Ed. 

t  Il».,  A  pp.  I  lb-, 


/;/  the  Reign  of  George  IIL  551 

the  causes  of  many  of  those  peculiar  circumstances  which, 
at  this  day,  belong  to  that  country.  If  it  be  asked  why 
the  people  of  Ireland  are  so  illiterate,  the  answer  that 
presents  itself  is :  Look  to  the  penal  laws  that  deprived 
them,  till  a  late  period,  of  education.  If  it  be  asked,  why 
they  are  poor,  the  same  answer  must  be  given  :  Look  to 
the  penal  laws.  If  it  be  asked  why  the  lower  orders  eat 
vegetables  onl}^  and  live  in  hovels,  still  the  same  answer  : 
Look  to  the  penal  laws.  If  it  be  asked  why  there  is  no 
class  of  yeomanry  in  Ireland  like  that  in  England,  the 
answer  is :  Because  the  penal  laws  prohibited  industry, 
and  prevented  the  small  land-owner  from  acquiring 
either  property  or  consequence  in  the  one  country,  as  he 
might  do  in  the  other.  If  it  be  asked  why  the  people 
are  discontented,  and  dislike  England,  this  answer  alone 
can  be  given :  Because  from  England  they  received 
this  penal  code,  under  which  they  have  endured,  for 
above  a  century,  every  species  of  calamity,  contrary  to 
the  positive  stipulations  of  a  sacred  and  solemn  treaty. 

It  w^as  in  the  year  1774  that  the  Irish  legislature  passed 
the  first  act  toward  conciliating  the  Catholics :  An  act 
to  enable  his  majesty's  subjects,  of  whatever  persuasion, 
to  testify  their  allegiance  to  him,""*^  which  is  as  follows  : — 
Whereas  many  of  his  majesty's  subjects  in  this  king- 
dom are  desirous  to  testify  their  loyalty  and  allegiance 
to  his  majesty,  and  their  abhorrence  of  certain  doctrines 
imputed  to  them,  and  to  remove  jealousies  which  hereby 
have  for  a  length  of  time  subsisted  between  them  and 
others  of  his  majesty's  loyal  subjects ;  but  upon  account  of 
their  religious  tenets  are,  by  the  laws  now  in  being,  pre- 
vented from  giving  public  assurances  of  such  allegiance, 
and  of  their  real  principles,  and  good-wnll  and  affection 
toward  their  fellow-subjects :  in  order,  therefore,  to  give 
such  persons  an  opportunity  of  testifying  their  allegiance 
to  his  majesty,  and  good-will  toward  the  present  const itu- 


*  13  and  14  George  III,  c.  35. 


552  Penal  Laws 

tioii  of  this  kingdom,  and  to  promote  peace  and  industry 
amongst  the  inhabitants  thereof,  be  it  enacted  by  the 
king's  most  excellent  majesty,  by  and  with  the  advice 
and  consent  of  the  lords  spiritual  and  temporal  and 
commons,  in  this  present  p.irHament  assembled,  and  by 
the  authority  of  the  same,  that,  from  and  after  the 
first  day  of  June,  1774,  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful  for 
any  person  professing  the  Popish  religion  to  go  before 
the  judges  of  his  majesty's  Court  of  King's  Bench,  any 
justice  of  the  peace  for  the  county  in  which  he  does  or 
shall  reside,  or  before  any  magistrate  of  any  city  or  town 
corporate  wherein  he  does  or  shall  reside,  and  there  take 
and  subscribe  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  declaration  here- 
inafter mentioned,  which  oath  and  declaration  such  judges 
of  the  King's  Bench,  justices  of  the  peace  and  mag*i«^trates, 
are  hereby  enabled  and  required  to  administer  :- 

"  '  I,  A.  B.,  do  take  Almighty  God  and  His  only  Son, 
Jesus  Christ,  my  Redeemer,  to  witness  that  I  will  be 
faithful  and  bear  true  allegiance  to  our  most  gracious 
sovereign  lord,  King  George  III,  and  him  will  defend 
to  the  utmost  of  my  power  against  all  conspiracies  and 
attempts  whatever,  that  shall  be  made  against  his 
person,  crown  and  dignity;  and  I  will  do.  my  utmost 
endeavor  to  disclose  and  make  known  to  his  majesty  and 
his  heirs  all  treasons  and  traitorous  conspiracies  which 
may  be  formed  against  him  or  them  ;  and  I  do  faithfully 
promise  to  maintain,  support,  and  defend,  to  the  utmost 
of  my  power,  the  succession  of  the  crown  in  his  majesty's 
family  against  any  person  or  persons  whatsoever,  here- 
by utter.y  renouncing  and  abjuring  any  obedience  or 
allegiance  unto  the  person  taking  upon  himself  the  style 
and  title  of  Prince  of  Wales,  in  the  lifetime  of  his  father, 
and  who,  since  his  death,  is  said  to  have  assumed  the 
style  and  title  of  King  of  G''eat  Britain  and  Ireland  by 
the  name  of  Charles  III,  and  to  any  other  person  claiming 
01  pretending  a  right  to  the  crown  of  these  realms ;  and 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


553 


1  do  swear  that  I  do  reject  and  detest  as  unchristian 
and  impious  to  believe  that  it  is  lawful  to  murder  or  de- 
stroy any  person  or  persons  whatsoever,  for  or  under 
pretence  of  their  being  heretics,  and  also  that  unchris- 
tian and  impious  principle,  that  no  faith  is  to  be  kept  with 
heretics.  I  further  declare  that  it  is  no  article  of  my 
faith,  and  that  I  do  renounce,  reject,  and  abjure,  the 
opinion  that  princes  excommunicated  by  the  pope  and 
council,  or  by  any  authority  of  the  See  of  Rome,  or  by 
any  authority  whatsoever,  may  be  deposed  and  murdered 
by  their  subjects,  or  by  any  person  whatsoever ;  and  I 
do  promise  that  I  will  not  hold,  maintain,  or  abet  any 
such  opinion,  or  any  other  opinion  contrary  to  what  is 
expressed  in  this  declaration ;  and  I  do  declare  that  I  do 
not  believe  that  the  Pope  of  Rome,  or  an}^  other  foreign 
prince,  prelate,  state,  or  potentate,  hath  or  ought  to  have 
any  temporal  or  civil  jurisdiction,  power,  superiority,  or 
preeminence,  directly  or  indirectly,  within  this  realm; 
and  I  do  solemnly,  in  the  presence  of  God,  and  His  only 
Son,  Jesus  Christ,  my  Redeemer,  profess,  testify,  and 
declare  that  I  do  make  this  declaration,  and  every  part 
thereof,  in  the  plain  and  ordinary  sense  of  the  words  of 
this  oath,  without  any  evasion,  equivocation,  or  mental 
reservation  whatsoever,  and  without  any  dispensation 
already  granted  by  the  pope,  or  any  authority  of  the 
See  of  Rome,  or  any  person  whatever,  and  without 
thinking  that  I  am  or  can  be  acquitted  before  God  or 
man,  or  absolved  of  this  declaration,  or  any  part  thereof, 
although  the  pope,  or  any  other  person  or  persons, 
or  authority  whatsoever,  shall  dispense  with  or  annul 
the  same,  or  declare  that  it  was  null  and  void  from  the 
beginning.    So  help  me  God.' 

'*  And  be  it  enacted  by  the  authority  aforesaid,  that  the 
officers  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench,  justices  of  peace 
and  magistrates  of  the  cities  and  towns  corporate,  shall 
yearly,  within  twenty-one  days  after  the  istof  December, 


554 


Penal  Laws 


return  lo  the  clerk  of  ihe  Privy  Council  of  tLis  kingdom, 
u\-  his  deputy,  a  true  and  perfect  list,  under  his  or  their 
liand,  of  every  such  Papist  as  shall,  in  the  course  of  the 
preceding  year,  have  taken  and  subscribed  such  oath,  in 
which  list  the  quaUty,  condition,  title,  and  place  of  such 
Papist  shall  be  specified." 

About  the  ^ame  time,  fearing  that  their  grievances  were 
not  known  to  his  majesty,  the  Catholics  prepared  a 
petition,  which  was  presented  to  Lord  Buckinghamshire 
by  Lord  Fingal,  Mr.  Preston,  and  Mr.  Dermot,  in  order 
that  it  might  be  transmitted  by  him  to  the  king: — 

"  To  THE  King's  Most  Excellent  Majesty,  the 

HUMBLE  address    AND    PETITION    OF    THE  ROMAN 

Catholics  of  Ireland  : 
"  Most  Gracious  Sovereign  :  — 

We,  your  majesty's  most  dutiful  subjects,  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  your  kingdom  of  Ireland,  with  hearts  full 
of  loyalt}',  but  overwhelmed  with  affliction,  and  de- 
pressed by  our  calamitous  and  ruined  circumstances,  beg 
leave  to  lay  at  your  majesty's  feet  some  small  part  of 
those  numerous  and  insupportable  grievances  under 
which  we  have  long  groaned,  not  only  without  anv  act 
of  disobedience,  but  even  without  murmur  or  complaint, 
in  hopes  that  our  inviolable  submission  and  unaltered 
patience  under  those  severe  pressures  would  fully  con- 
fute  the  accusation  of  seditious  principles,  with  which  we 
have  been  unfortunately  and  unjustly  charged. 

"  We  are  deeply  sensible  of  your  majesty's  clemency  in 
moderating  the  rigorous  execution  of  some  of  the  laws 
against  us,  but  we  humbly  beg  leave  to  represent  that 
several,  and  those  the  most  severe  and  distressing  of 
those  laws,  execute  themselves  with  the  most  fatal 
certainty,  and  that  your  majesty's  clemency  cannot,  in 
the  smallest  degree,  interpose  for  their  mitigation  ;  other- 
wise your  Roman  Catholic  subjects  would  most  cheer 


J/f  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


fuli_y  acquiesce  in  that  resource,  and  rest  with  an  absolute 
and  unbounded  assurance  on  your  majesty's  princely 
generosity,  and  your  pious  regard  to  the  rights  of  pri\  ate 
conscience. 

"  We  are,  may  it  please  your  majesty,  a  numerous  and 
very  industrious  part  of  your  majesty's  subjects  ;  and  yet 
by  no  industry,  by  no  honest  endeavors  on  our  part,  is  it 
in  our  power  to  acquire  or  to  hold  almost  any  secure  or 
permanent  property  whatsoever.  We  are  not  only  dis- 
qualified to  purchase,  but  are  disabled  from  occupying  any 
land,  even  in  farm,  except  on  a  tenure  extremely  scanted 
both  in  profit  and  in  time;  and  if  we  should  venture  tSo 
expend  anything  on  the  melioration  of  land  thus  held,  by 
building,  by  enclosure,  by  draining,  or  b}^  any  other  species 
of  improvement  so  very  necessary  in  this  countr}',  so  far 
would  our  services  be  from  bettering  our  fortunes,  that 
these  are  precisely  the  very  circumstances  which,  as  the 
law  stands,  must  necessarily  disqualify  us  from  continuing 
those  farms  for  any  time  in  our  possession. 

"  Whilst  the  endeavors  of  our  industry  are  thus  dis- 
couraged,— no  less,  we  humbly  apprehend,  to  the  detri- 
ment of  the  national  prosperity,  and  the  diminution  of  your 
majesty's  revenue,  and  to  our  particular  ruin, — there  are 
a  set  of  men  who,  instead  of  exercising  any  honest 
occupation  in  the  commonwealth,  make  it  their  employ- 
ment to  pry  into  our  miserable  poverty,  to  drag  us  into 
the  courts,  and  to  compel  us  to  confess,  on  our  oaths, 
and  under  the  penalties  of  perjury,  whether  we  have,  in 
any  instance,  acquired  a  property  in  the  smallest  degree 
exceeding  what  the  rigor  of  the  law  has  admitted ;  and 
in  such  cases  the  informers,  without  anv  other  merit  than 
that  of  their  discovery,  are  invested,  to  the  daily  ruin  of 
several  innocent,  industrious  families,  not  only  with  the 
surplus  in  which  the  law  is  exceeded,  but  in  the  whole 
body  of  the  estate  and  interest  so  discovered ;  and  it  is 
our  grief  that  this  evil  is  likely  to  continue  and  increase. 


556  Penal  Laws 

as  informers  have,  in  this  country,  almost  worn  off  the 
infamy  which,  in  all  ages  and  in  all  other  countries,  has 
attended  their  character,  and  have  grown  into  some 
rejmte  by  the  frequency  and  success  of  their  practices. 

'*And  this,  most  gracious  sovereign,  though  extremely 
grievous,  is  far  from  being  the  only  or  most  oppressive 
particular  in  which  our  distress  is  connected  with  the 
breach  of  the  rules  of  honor  and  morality.  By  the 
laws  now  in  force  in  this  kingdom,  a  son,  however  un- 
dutiful  or  profligate,  shall,  merely  by  the  merit  of  con- 
forming to  the  established  religion,  not  only  deprive  the 
Roman  Catholic  father  of  that  free  and  full  possession  of 
his  estate,  that  power  to  mortgage  or  otherwise  dis- 
pose of  it  which  the  exigencies  of  his  affairs  may  require, 
but  shall  himself  have  full  liberty  immediately  to  mort- 
gage or  otherwise  alienate  the  reversion  of  that  estate 
from  his  family  forever:  a  regulation  by  which  a  father, 
contrary  to  the  order  of  nature,  is  put  under  the  power 
of  his  son,  and  through  which  an  early  dissoluteness  is 
not  only  suffered,  but  encouraged,  by  giving  a  pernicious 
privilege,  the  frequent  use  of  which  has  broken  the  hearts 
of  many  deserving  parents,  and  entailed  poverty  and  de- 
spair on  some  of  the  most  ancient  and  opulent  families  in 
this  kingdom. 

Even  when  the  parent  has  the  good  fortune  to  escape 
this  calamity  in  his  lifetime,  yet  he  has,  at  his  death,  the 
melancholy  and  almbst  certain  prospect  of  leaving  neither 
peace  nor  fortune  to  his  children  ;  for,  by  that  law,  which 
bestows  the  whole  fortune  on  the  first  conformist,  or, 
on  non-conformity,  disperses  it  among  the  children,  in- 
curable jealousies  and  animosities  have  arisen,  a  total 
extinction  of  principle  and  of  a  natural  benevolence  has 
ensued,  whilst  we  are  obliged  to  consider  our  own  off- 
spring and  the  brothers  of  our  own  blood  as  our  most 
dangerous  enemies;  the  blessing  of  Providence  on  our 
families,  in  a  numerous  issue,  is  converted  into  the  most 


4 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III,  ^57 

certain  means  of  their  ruin  and  depravation;  we  are, 
most  gracious  sovereign,  permitted  neither  to  enjoy  the 
few  broken  remains  of  our  oatrimonial  inheritance,  nor 

A. 

by  our  industry  to  acquire  any  secure  establishment  to 
our  famiHes. 

In  this  deplorable  situation  let  it  not  be  considered, 
we  earnestly  beseech  your  majesty,  as  an  instance  of 
presumption  or  discontent,  that  we  thus  adventure  to  lay 
open  to  your  majesty's  mercy  a  very  small  part  of  our 
uncommon  sufferings:  what  we  have  concealed  under  a 
respectful  silence  would  form  a  far  longer  and  full  as 
melancholy  a  recital.  We  speak  with  reluctance,  though 
we  feel  with  anguish  ;  v\^e  respect  from  the  bottom  of  our 
hearts  that  legislation  under  which  we  suffer,  but  we 
himibly  conceive  it  is  impossible  to  procure  redress  with- 
out complaint,  or  to  make  a  complaint  that  by  some 
construction  may  not  appear  to  convey  blame.  And  noth- 
ing, we  assure  your  majesty,  should  have  extorted  from  us 
even  these  complaints  but  the  strong  necessity  v.^e  find 
ourselves  under,  of  employing  every  lawful,  humble  en 
deavor,  lest  the  whole  purpose  of  our  lives  and  labors 
should  prove  only  the  means  of  confirming  to  ourselves, 
and  entailing  on  our  posterity,  inevitable  beggary  and  the 
most  abject  servitude, — a  servitude  the  more  intolerable 
as  it  is  suffered  amidst  that  liberty,  that  peace,  and  that 
security,  which,  under  your  majesty's  benign  influence, 
is  spread  all  around  us,  and  which  -we  alone,  of  all  your 
majesty's  subjects,  are  rendered  incapable  of  partaking. 

"  In  all  humihty  we  implore  that  our  principles  mav 
not  be  estimated  bv  the  inflamed  charcre  of  controversial 
writers,  nor  our  practices  measured  by  the  events  of 
those  troubled  periods  when  parties  have  run  high 
(though  these  have  been  often  misrepresented,  and  always 
cruelly  exaggerated  to  our  prejudice),  Lvit  that  we  may 
be  judged  by  our  own  actions,  and  in  c  ir  own  t'nics. 
And  we  humbl}^  offer  it  to  your  most  ec^r.itablc  and 


558 


Penal  Laivs 


princely  consideration,  that  we  do  not  rest  the  proof  of 
our  sincerity  on  words,  but  on  things:  on  our  dutiful, 
peaceable,  submissive  behavior  for  more  than  fourscore 
years ;  and  though  it  will  be  considered  as  too  severe  to 
form  any  opinion  of  great  bodies  by  the  practice  of 
indiviuals,  yet  if,  in  all  that  time^  amongst  all  our  people^ 
in  the  daily  increase  of  severe  laws  against  us^  one  treasonable 
insurrection,  or  one  treasonable  conspiracy  can  be  proved,  if, 
amongst  our  clcrgy^one seditious  sermoji  can  be  shown  to  have 
been  preached,  we  will  readily  admit  that  there  is  good 
reason  for  continuing  the  present  laws  in  all  their  force 
against  us.  But  if,  on  the  contrary  (we  speak  in  full 
confidence),  it  can  be  shown  that  our  clergy  have  ever 
exerted  their  utmost  endeavors  to  enforce  submission  to 
your  majesty's  government,  and  obedience  to  your  laws  ; 
if  it  can  be  shown  that  these  endeavors  have  always 
been  most  strenuous  in  times  of  public  danger,  or  when 
any  accident  tended  to  create  a  ferment  amongst  the 
people ;  if  our  laity  have  frequently  offered  (what  we  are 
always  ready  to  fulfil)  to  hazard  their  lives  and  fortunes 
for  your  majesty's  service ;  if  we  have  willingly  bound 
up  the  fruits  of  our  discouraged  industry  with  the  for- 
tunes of  your  majesty's  government  in  the  public  loans, 
then  we  humbly  hope  we  may  be  admitted  to  a  small 
portion  of  merc}^  and  that  that  behavior,  which  your 
majesty's  benignity  and  condescension  will  esteem  a  merit 
in  our  circumstances,  may  entitle  us,  not  to  reward,  but 
to  such  toleration  as  may  enable  us  to  become  useful 
citizens  to  our  country,  and  subjects  as  profitable  as  we 
are  loyal  to  your  majesty. 

•*  Permit  us,  most  gracious  sovereign,  on  this  occasion 
to  reiterate  the  assurances  of  our  unshaken  loyalty, 
which  all  our  sufferings  have  not  been  able  to  abate;  of 
our  sincere  zeal  for  your  majestj^'s  service,  of  our 
attachment  to  the  constitution  of  our  countrv,  and  of  our 
warmest  gratitude  for  your  majesty's  continual  indul- 


Ill  the  Rcign  of  George  II L 


5C9 


gcnce,  and  for  the  late  instance  of  favor  we  have  experi- 
enced from  parliament,  in  enabling  us,  consistent  with 
our  religious  tenets,  to  give  a  legal  proof  of  our  sentiments 
upon  these  points.  And  we  humbly  hope  that  the 
alacrity  and  eagerness  with  which  we  have  seized  *his 
first,  though  long-wished-for  opportunity  of  testifying  in 
the  most  solemn  and  public  manner  our  inviolable 
fidelity  to  your  majesty,  our  real  principles,  and  our  good- 
will and  affection  toward  our  fellow-subjects,  will 
extinguish  all  jealousies,  and  remove  those  imputations 
which  alone  have  hitherto  held  us  forth  in  the  light  of 
enemies  to  your  majesty  and  to  the  state.  And  if  any- 
thing further  can  be  suggested  or  devised,  whereby  we 
can,  by  our  actions,  more  fully  evince  our  sincerity,  we 
shall  consider  such  an  opportunity  of  demonstrating 
our  real  loyalty  as  a  high  favor,  and  shall  be  deficient 
in  no  act  whatever  which  does  not  amount  to  a  renun- 
ciation of  that  religious  profession  which  we  value  more 
than  our  lives,  and  which  it  cannot  be  suspected  we  hold 
from  obstinacy  or  a  contempt  of  the  laws,  since  it  has 
been  taken  up  by  ourselves,  but  has,  from  time  imme- 
morial, been  handed  down  to  us  from  our  ancestors. 

"  We  derive  no  small  consolation,  most  gracious  sover 
eisrn,  from  considerinof  that  the  most  severe  and  ri^for- 
ous  of  the  iavV^s  against  us  had  been  enacted  before  the 
accession  of  your  majesty's  most  illustrious  house  to 
the  throne  of  these  kingdoms  ;  we,  therefore,  indulge  the 
more  sanguine  hopes  that  the  mitigation  of  them,  and 
the  establishment  of  peace,  industry,  and  universal  hap- 
piness amongst  all  your  loyal  subjects,  may  be  one  of 
the  blessings  of  your  majesty's  reign. 

"  And  though  we  might  plead  in  favor  of  such  relaxa- 
tion, the  express  words  of  a  solemn  treaty,  entered  into 
with  us  by  your  majesty's  royal  predecessor,  King  Wil- 
liam (which  has  been  forfeited  bv  no  disobedience  on  our 
part),  yet  we  neither  wish  nor  desire  to  receive  anything 


560 


Penal  Laivs 


but  as  a  mere  act  of  jour  majesty's  clemency,  and  of  the 
indulgence  and  equity  of  your  parliament. 

**That  this  act  of  truly  loyal  beneficence  and  justice  may 
De  added  to  the  other  instances  of  your  majesty's  august 
virtue^,  and  that  the  deliverance  of  a  faithful  and  dis- 
tressed people  may  be  one  of  those  distinguishing  acts  of 
your  reign,  which  shall  transmit  its  memory  to  the  love, 
gratitude  and  veneration  of  your  latest  posterit}',  is  the 
humble  prayer  of,"  *  etc.,  etc. 

In  the  year  1778,!  an  act  was  passed  for  the  relief  of 
his  majesty's  subjects  of  this  kingdom  professing  the 
Popish  religion,"  the  preamble  of  which  contains  a  con- 
firmation of  everything  that  has  been  already  advanced 
concerning  the  lo3^alty  of  the  Catholics,  and  a  declara- 
tion oil  the  part  of  the  king  and  parliament  res[Tecting 
the  policy  of  admitting  the  Catholics  into  a.  full  partici- 
pation of  the  blessings  of  the  constitution,  which  is  a 
complete  recognition  of  their  right  to  enjoy  them.  It 
states :  "  And  whereas,  from  their  uniform  peaceable 
behavior  for  a  long  series  of  years,  it  appears  reasonable 
and  expedient  to  relax  the  same  [the  laws  of  Anne],  and 
it  must  tend  not  only  to  the  cultivation  and  improvement 
of  this  kingdom,  but  to  the  prosperity  and  strength  of  all 
his  majesty's  dominions,  that  his  subjects  of  all  denomina- 
tions should  enjoy  the  blessings  of  a  free  constitution, 
and  should  be  bound  to  each  other  by  mutual  interest 
and  mutual  affection,"  etc. 

By  this  act,  Papists,  provided  they  take  the  oa.th  and 
declaration  of  13  and  14  George  III,  c.  35,  are  admitted 
to  the  following  privileges  : — 

They  may  take  land  on  leases  not  exceeding  nine  hun- 
dred and  ninety-nine  years,  or  determinable  upon  any 
number  of  lives  not  exceeding  five. 

*  This  petition  is  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Burke, 
t  17  and  18  George  III,  c.  49. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III,  5G1 

The  lands  of  Papists  are  to  be  descendible,  devisable, 
and  transferable,  as  fully  as  if  the  same  were  in  the 
seizure  of  any  other  of  his  majesty's  subjects. 

Papists  are  rendered  capable  to  hold  and  enjoy  all 
estates  which  may  descend,  be  devised  or  transferred  to 
them. 

No  maintenance  is  to  be  hereafter  granted  to  a  con- 
forming child  of  a  Papist  out  of  the  personal  property 
of  such  Papist,  except  out  of  such  leases  as  may  be 
taken  under  this  act. 

And  the  conformity  of  the  eldest  son  is  not  to  alter, 
hereafter,  the  Popish  parent's  estate. 

In  the  year  1782  another  act  was  passed  "  for  the 
further  relief  of  his  majesty's  subjects  of  this  kingdom 
professing  the  Popish  religion."* 

The  preamble  of  this  act :  "  Whereas  all  such  of  his 
majesty's  subjects  in  this  kingdom,  of  whatever  .per- 
suasion, as  have  heretofore  taken  and  subscribed,  or  shall 
hereafter  take  and  subscribe,  the  oath  of  allegiance  and 
declaration  prescribed  by  an  act  passed  in  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  years  of  his  present  majesty's  reign,  entitled 
*  An  act  to  enable  his  majesty's  subjects,  of  whatever  per- 
suasion, to  testify  their  allegiance  to  him,'  ought  to  be 
considered  as  good  and  loyal  subjects  to  his  majesty, 
his  crown  and  government:  and  whereas  a  continuance 
of  several  of  the  laws  formerly  enacted,  and  still  in  force 
in  this  kingdom,  against  persons  professing  the  Popish 
religion,  is  therefore  unnecessary  in  respect  to  those 
who  have  taken  or  shall  take  the  said  oath,  and  is  in- 
jurious to  the  real  wealth  and  prosperity  of  Ireland, 
therefore,"  etc. 

By  this  act.  Catholics,  provided  they  take  this  oath, 
may  purchase  or  take  lands,  or  any  interest  therein,  ex- 
cept ad  vowsons  or  boroughs,  returning  members  of  parlia- 
ment, and  dispose  of  the  same  by  will  or  otherwise  ;  and 


*  21  and  22  George  III,  c  24. 


Penal  Laws 


Popish  ecclesiastics,  on  the  same  condition,  and  regis- 
tering their  names  and  abode  with  the  register  of  the 
diocese,  are  discharged  from  all  penalties. 

This  act  repeals  so  much  of  8  Anne  as  subjects  a 
Papist  to  fine  and  imprisonment  on  his  refusal  to  testify 
on  oath,  before  two  justices  of  the  peace,  when  and  where 
he  heard  the  Popish  Mass  celebrated,  and  the  name  of  the 
person  celebrating  it;  and  so  much  of  7  William  III,  c. 
5,  as  subjects  any  Papist,  who  shall  have  in  his  possession 
any  horse  of  the  value  of  £^  or  more,  to  the  penalties 
therein  mentioned ;  and  so  much  of  8  Anne  as  enables 
the  lord-lieutenant  to  seize  any  horse  belonging  to  a 
Papist,  upon  a  prospect  of  invasion  or  rebellion.  It  also 
repeals  so  much  of  9  George  II,  c.  6,  as  enables  grand 
juries  to  reimburse  such  persons  as  have  been  robbed  by 
privateers  in  time  of  war  for  their  losses,  and  to  levy 
the  same  on  the  goods  of  Papists  only ;  and  so  much  of 
6  George  I,  c.  10,  as  subjects  Papists  who  shall  not 
provide  a  Protestant  watchman  to  watch  in  their  turn,  to 
certain  penalties ;  and  so  much  of  2  Anne,  c.  6,  as  sub- 
jects Papists  who  took  any  house,  or  came  to  dwell  in 
Limerick  after  the  year  1703,  or  within  the  town  of 
Galwa}^  to  certain  penalties. 

In  the  same  year  was  likewise  passed  an  act  to  allow 
persons  professing  the  Popish  religion  to  teach  school 
in  this  kingdom,  and  for  regulating  the  education  of 
Papists,  and  also  to  repeal  parts  of  certain  laws  relative 
to  the  guardianship  of  their  children.* 

The  preamble  states :  "Whereas  several  of  the  laws 
made  in  this  kingdom  relative  to  the  education  of 
Papists,  or  persons  professing  the  Popish  religion,  are 
considered  as  too  severe,  and  have  not  answered  the 
desired  effect." 

This  act  repeals  so  much  of  7  William  III,  c.  4,  and 
of  8  Anne,  c.  3,  as  subjects  Catholics  who  shall  publicly 


•  21  and  22  George  HI,  c.  62. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


563 


teach  school,  or  privately  instruct  youths,  to  the  like 
penalties  as  any  Popish  regular  convict,  provided  they 
take  the  oaths  of  13  and  14  George  III,  c.  35  ;  and  it 
enables  Catholics,  except  ecclesiastics,  to  be  guardians. 

Of  the  numerous  individuals  who  at  this  time  distin- 
guished themselves  for  their  exertions  in  favor  of  Cath- 
olics, there  was  no  one  to  whom  they  were  under  greater 
obligations  than  to  the  late  Mr.  Burke.  He  wrote  for 
them  the  petition  which  was  presented  to  the  king  in 
1774.  In  the  English  House  of  Commons,  in  1778,  he  was 
the  first  to  declare  the  necessity  of  concessions  being 
made  to  them.  He  said  that  ''Ireland  was  now  the 
chief  dependence  of  the  British  crown,  and  it  particu- 
larl}^  behoved  that  country  to  admit  the  Irish  nation 
to  the  privileges  of  British  citizens *  and  in  the  year 
1782  he  wrote  his  celebrated  letter  to  Lord  Kenmare, 
in  which  he  so  ably  exposed  the  folly,  injustice,  and 
tyranny  of  the  penal  laws. 

It  certainly  is  a  fact  of  no  small  importance  in  favor  of 
the  wisdom  of  unlimited  concession  to  the  Catholics,  that 
this  great  statesman,  the  advocate  of  existing  establish- 
ments, and  who  was  the  first  and  most  formidable 
opponent  to  the  progress  of  the  Jacobinical  principles  of 
France,  should  have  advised  it,  and  incessantly  forwarded 
it  by  his  powerful  talents  and  extensive  influence. 

But  the  Catholics  were  indebted,  not  only  to  the 
labors  of  their  friends,  but  also  to  the  great  revoKition 
which  was  going  on  at  that  period  in  America,  for  the 
success  of  the  first  concessions  that  were  made  to  them. 
This  soon  appeared  very  evident.  An  attempt  was  made 
by  Mr.  James  Fitzgerald,  a  few  months  before  the  intro- 
duction of  the  act  of  17  and  18  George  III,  to  obtain 
for  them  a  power  to  take  leases  of  lands  for  sixty-one 
years:  and  this  attempt  failed.  But  soon  afterward, 
when  the  intelligence  arrived  of  the  defeat  of  the  British 

•  8  Eng.  Deb.  9,  185,  ist  April,  1778. 


5C4 


Paial  Laws 


forces  in  America,  the  same  parliament,  on  the  recom- 
mendation of  the  government,  passed  an  act  for  enabUng 
them  to  take  land  on  leases  for  nine  hundred  and  ninety- 
nine  years. 

It  was  not,  however,  till  the  British  government  were 
obliged  to  transport  the  whole  of  the  British  army  from 
Ireland  to  America,  and  thus  leave  it  exposed  to  the  in- 
vasion of  France,  that  the  Catholics  became  of  sufficient 
importance,  in  the  eyes  either  of  their  own  Protestant 
countrymen  or  of  the  British  government,  to  be  attended 
to  and  caressed  by  them. 

The  only  alternative,  then,  left  for  the  Protestants  to 
adopt  was,  either  to  promote  a  union  of  sects  in  the  com- 
mon defence  of  the  kingdom,  or  to  make  up  their  minds 
to  fall  an  easy  prey  to  the  arms  of  France.  Upon  this 
principle  of  preservation,  by  an  oblivion  of  all  past  ani- 
mosities, the  volunteers  were  embodied,  and  composed 
indiscriminatel}'  of  Catholics  and  Protestants.  But,  in 
proportion  as  the  danger  of  invasion  diminished,  they 
natarally  turned  their  attention  to  the  grievances  that 
both  sects  experienced  at  the  hands  of  the  British  govern- 
ment, and  soon  became  an  armed  association  for  the 
attainment  of  political  rights. 

In  this  appeal  to  arms,  in  open  resistance  to  the  power 
of  Great  Britain,  for  the  purpose  of  compelling  her  to 
grant  to  Ireland  the  independence  of  her  legislature, 
and  a  reform  of  her  parliament,  the  Protestants  took 
the  lead.  But  the  contention  between  them  and  the 
British  government  was  not  one  of  arms,  because  Great 

*  "In  the  year  T782,  when  the  treasury  had  no  supply,  but  was,  in  fact,  bank- 
rupt, when  a  French  fleet  appeared  off  Cork,  when  the  army  was  only  4,000 
men,  and  unprovided,  it  was  evidently  owing  to  the  wealth  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  that  the  country  was  put  into  a  posture  of  defence,  and  saved  from 
the  invasion  of  the  enemy;  whereas,  had  they  been  disposed  to  be  disloyal 
upon  that  occasion,  and  to  have  made  use  of  that  power  which  they  actually 
possessed,  they  might  have  completely  separated  Ireland  from  the  government 
of  this  country.  " — Speech  of  Lord  Buckinc^ham,  June  22,  1808. 


In  the  Reij^n  of  George  III, 


Brilaiii  had  no  troops  with  which  to  dispute  with  the 
Volunteers,  but  one  of  pohtical  manoeuvring.  It  was 
plain  that,  to  whichever  party  the  Cathohcs  attach/jd 
themselves,  victory  would  belong.  The  government, 
therefore,  in  order  to  secure  them,  passed  the  acts  of 
1778  and  1782,  while  the  Protestants,  on  the  other  hand, 
endeavored  to  conciliate  them  by  public  resolutions  and 
declarations  in  favor  of  their  complete  emancipation. 

The  Dungannon  Convention,  which  met  in  February, 
1782,  and  was  composed  of  the  representatives  of  one 
hundred  and  forty-three  Protestant  corps  of  volunteers, 
resolved,  with  two  dissenting  voices  only :  That  they 
held  the  right  of  private  judgment,  in  matters  of  religion, 
to  be  equally  sacred  in  others  as  themselves;  therefore, 
that,  as  Christians  and  Protestants,  they  were  rejoiced  in 
the  relaxation  of  the  penal  laws  against  their  Roman 
Catholic  fellow-subjects,  and  that  they  conceived  the 
measure  to  be  fraught  with  the  happiest  consequences  to 
the  union  and  prosperity  of  Ireland." 

These  liberal  declarations  on  the  part  of  this  meeting 
and  the  general  tenor  of  the  conduct  of  the  Protestants 
throughout  Ireland  toward  the  Catholics,  secured  their 
cordial  concurrence;  and  the  British  government  were 
at  length  reluctantly  obliged  to  concede  the  favorite 
object  of  an  independent  Irish  legislature. 

The  Protestants  now  proceeded  to  attempt  to  carry 
their  other  great  object,  a  parliamentary  reform  ;  and  after 
the  sense  of  the  kingdom  had  been  expressed,  at  various 
public  meetings,  to  be  decidedly  in  favor  of  it,  they  deter- 
mined to  hold  a  convention  in  Dublin  for  the  purpose  of 
impressing  upon  government  and  parliament  the  neces- 
sity of  acceding  to  their  demands.  In  the  meantime  a 
division  of  opinion  had  manifested  itself  ampng  some 
of  the  Northern  corps  of  volunteers  on  the  Catholic 
question,  and  Lord  Charlemont  and  other  persons  had 
declared  themselves  hostile  to  further  concessions.  This 


5G6 


Penal  Laws 


circumstance  affjrdei  the  government  an  easy  oppor- 
tunity of  defeating  the  object  of  the  convention.  They 
contrived  to  have  a  motion  made  for  connecting  the 
emancipation  of  the  Catholics  with  the  question  of  par- 
liamentary reform  ;  and  upon  its  being  rejected  by  the 
convention,  knowing  that  its  power  was  not  to  be 
dreaded,  if  unsupported  by  the  Catholic  population,  they 
despised  its  threats,  and  by  a  manly  opposition  to  their 
demands,  they  secured  their  dispersion  without  tumult, 
and  certainly  without  the  regret  of  the  advocates  of 
such  a  reform  in  parliament  as  the  general  circumstances 
of  the  countr}'  absolutely  required. 

From  this  period  to  the  year  1790  the  Catholic  ques- 
tion was  not  once  agitated,  either  by  the  Catholics  or  by 
parliament.  In  this  year  the  attorney-general  brought 
in  a  bill  to  explain  and  amend  the  act  of  22  George  111, 
c'.  62. 

The  intention  of  this  act  was  to  give  to  Catholics  the 
power  of  appointing  guardians  to  their  children;  but  it 
was  so  carelessly  drawn  that,  upon  consulting  it  in  the 
case  of  the  will  of  the  late  Lord  Gormanstown,  by  which 
he  had  appointed  guardians  to  his  son,  it  was  discovered 
that  they  were  not  competent  to  act.  The  present  bill 
was  therefore  introduced  to  remedy  this  defect. 

A  circumstance  which  took  place  this  summer  shows 
that  this  act  of  common  justice  was  not  in  any  degree 
the  result  of  an  inclination  on  the  part  of  the  govern- 
ment to  treat  the  Catholics  with  more  than  customary 
liberality.  Lord  Westmoreland,  then  lord-lieutenant, 
had  visited  the  south  ot  Ireland,  and,  on  his  arrival  at 
Cork,  it  was  intimated  to  the  Catholics  there  that  an 
expression  of  their  loyalty  would  be  acceptable.  Accord- 
ingly an  address  of  that  nature  was  prepared,  which, 
however,  concluded  with  a  hope  that  their  loyalty  would 
entitle  them  to  some  relaxation  of  the  penal  code. 
Before  its  being  formally  presented,  it  was  submitted  to 


/;/  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


his  excelleiic\%  and  was  returned  to  them  to  strike  out 
the  clause  which  expressed  hope.  With  a  feeling  rather 
natural  to  men  not  perfectly  broken  down  by  oppression, 
they  refused  to  strike  it  out,  and  declined  presenting  the 
address. 

A  century  of  pains  and  penalties  had  now  elapsed,  in 
which  period  the  most  severe  and  minute  investigation 
had  not  been  able  to  ascribe  to  the  Catholics  one  instance 
of  disloyalty,  when  they  at  length  determined  to  make 
a  vigorous  exertion  to  obtain  a  restoration  of  their  con- 
stitutional rights.  In  the  course  of  the  year  1790,  violent 
resolutions  had  been  entered  into  by  the  magistrates  of 
the  county  of  Armagh  against  them.  Those  of  Dublin, 
and  of  the  other  principal  cities  and  towns  of  Ireland, 
were,  in  consequence,  roused  to  adopt  resolutions  on  their 
part,  expressive  of  the  necessity  of  petitioning  parlia- 
ment. These  had  been  transmitted  to  the  general  com- 
mittee of  Catholics,  who,  thereupon,  held  a  meeting  to 
consider  them,  on  the  nth  February,  1791.  Th(?  general 
committee  referred  these  resolutions  to  a  sub-committee, 
who  made  upon  them  the  following  report : — 

'*  Your  committee  having,  in  obedience  to  your  direc- 
tions, carefully  perused  the  resolutions  of  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland,  report  that  said  resolutions  contain  the  most 
unequivocal  sentiments  of  loyalty  to  our  most  gracious 
sovereign,  George  III,  of  love  for  our  country,  and 
obedience  to  its  laws,  and  the  most  humble  hope  of 
being  restored  to  some  participation  of  its  excellent 
constitution. 

"  That  your  Catholic  brethren  refer,  with  confidence, 
to  the  numberless  proofs  they  have  given  of  fidelity,  in 
times  most  perilous,  when  rebellion  raged  in  the  bosom 
of  Britain,  and  when  foreign  invasion  threatened  our 
coast,  and  to  that  alacrity  with  which  all  descriptions  of 
our  people  took  the  oath  of  allegiance ;  and  they  rely  on 
the  fact  that  their  scrupulous  observance  of  such  peered 


568 


Penal  Laws 


obligation  will  nowhere  be  doubted,  when  it  is  considered 
that,  if  they  took  those  oaths  required  by  law,  they  would 
thereby  become  entitled  to  all  the  rights  of  citizens. 

That  with  all  humility  they  confide  in  the  justice, 
liberality  and  wisdom  of  parliament,  and  the  benignity 
of  our  most  gracious  sovereign,  to  relieve  them  from  their 
degraded  situation,  and  no  longer  to  suffer  them  to  con- 
tinue like  strangers  in  their  native  land,  but  thus  have 
the  glory  of  showing  all  Europe  that,  in  the  plenitude 
of  power,  strength,  and  riches  of  the  British  empire, 
when  nothing  they  grant  can  be  imputed  to  any  motives 
but  those  of  justice  and  toleration, — that  at  such  a  period 
they  deign  to  hear  and  relieve  the  oppressed  and  faith- 
ful subjects,  and  to  unite  them  forever  to  their  country 
by  every  tie  of  gratitude  and  interest ;  and  that  they 
will  show  all  Europe  that  humble  and  peaceful  conduct 
and  dutiful  application  are  the  only  true  and  effectual 
methods  for  good  subjects  to  obtain  relief  from  a  wise 
and  good  government. 

That  our  Catholic  brethren,  therefore,  desire  that 
application  may  be  made  for  such  rehef  as  the  wisdom 
and  justice  of  parliament  may  grant ;  and  they  hope  to 
be  restored  at  least  to  some  of  the  rights  and  privileges 
which  have  been  wisely  granted  to  others  who  dissent 
from  the  Established  Church,  that  they  may  be  thus 
enabled  to  promote,  in  conjunction  with  the  rest  of  their 
fellow-subjects,  the  present  and  future  happiness  and 
strength  of  their  country. 

"  That  our  said  Catholic  brethren  direct  that  such 
application  be  immediately  made  and  continued  in  the 
most  submissive  and  constitutional  manner  for  a  mitiga- 
tion of  the  restrictions  and  disqualifications  under  which 
they  labor." 

The  sfeneral  committee  havinof  agfreed  with  and 
adopted  this  report,  a  petition  was  prepared,  in  order  to 
be  laid  before  parliament  in  the  ensuing  session. 


/;/  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


5C9 


With  this  petition  a  deputation  of  the  general  com- 
mittee waited  upon  the  chief  secretary,  Lord  Hobart,  to 
solicit  the  countenance  and  protection  of  government: 
but  in  vain.  This  was  not  only  refused  them,  but  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  constituting,  at  the  lowest  calcula- 
tion, a  very  large  majori4:y  of  the  inhabitants  of  the 
kingdom,  had  not' even  sufficient  influence  to  induce  any 
one  member  of  parliament  to  present  it. 

A  second  deputation  having  failed  to  obtain  even  an 
answer  from  government  to  a  renewed  application  for 
its  support,  it  was  determined  to  send  Mr.  Keogh  to 
London,  to  lay  before  his  majesty's  ministers  the  state  of 
his  Catholic  subjects. 

Mr.  Keogh,  on  his  arrival  in  London,  instituted  a  nego^ 
tiation  'with  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  cabinet,  at  the  close  of 
which  the  Catholics  were  given  to  understand  that  they 
might  hope  for  four  objects  :  grand  juries,  county  magis- 
trates, high  sheriffs,  and  the  bar.  Admission  to  the  right 
of  suffrage  was  also  mentioned  and  taken  under  consid- 
eration. 

The  spirit  of  religious  liberty  having,  at  this  time, 
made  great  progress  among  the  Protestant  dissenters  in 
Ulster,  the  first  Belfast  volunteer  company,  in  July,  1791, 
passed  a  resolution  in  favor  of  admitting  the  Catholics 
to  a  full  enjoyment  of  the  constitution  ;  and  in  October 
the  great  Northern  Association  of  United  Irishmen'-* 
pledged  themselves  "  to  endeavor,  by  all  due  means,  to 
procure  a  cornplete  and  radical  reform  of  the  people  in 
parhament,  including  Irishmen  of  every  religious  per- 
suasion." 

In  the  meantime,  whilst  Mr.  Keogh  was  in  London,  the 
Irish  administration  had  been  endeavoring:  to  counteract 
the  views  of  the  Catholic  body,  by  a  negotiation  with 
the  principal  nobility  and  gentry  belonging  to  it ;  and  in 

*  It  was  not  till  1 794  that  a  new  society  under  this  name  embarked  in  an 
attempt  to  separate  Great  Britain  from  Ireland. 


570 


Ptiial  Laws 


some  degree  their  exertions  were  successful.  For,  at  a 
meeting  of  the  general  committee,  held  in  December, 
1791,  for  the  purpose  of  consideri.ig  the  policy  of  petition- 
ing parliament  in  the  ensuing  session,  some  of  the  meet- 
ing wished  to  adopt  a  resolution  of  seeking  no  removal 
of  the  existing  disabilities  but  in  such  a  manner  and  to 
such  an  extent  as  the  wisdom  of  the  legislature  deemed 
expedient.  This  was  resisted  by  others,  and  on  a  division 
upon  the  question  of  petitioning,  the  nobility  were  left  in 
a  minority  of  ninety  to  seventeen.  ' 

Pursuant  to  this  decision,  the  following  petition  was 
drawn  up,  and  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons 
by  Mr.  O'Hara,  on  the  28th  January,  1792 : — 

"  We,  your  petitioners,  being  appointed,  by  sundry  ot 
his  majesty's  subjects  professing  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion,  to  be  agents  for  conducting  applications  to  the 
legislature  for  their  relief,  in  our  own  and  their  names 
beg  leave  to  approach  this  high  court  of  parliament 
with  an  unfeigned  respect  for  its  wisdom  and  authority, 
and  at  the  same  time  with  a  deep  and  heartfelt  sensation 
of  our  singular  and  deplorable  situation.  And,  first  of 
all,  we  implore  (and  for  this  we  throw  ourselves  on  the 
indulgence  of  parliament)  that  no  irregularity  or  defect 
in  form  of  language  should  obstruct  the  success  of  these 
our  most  ardent  supplications.  The  circumstances  in 
which  we  stand  deserve  consideration.  For  near  a  hun- 
dred years  we,  and  our  fathers  and  our  grandfathers,  have 
groaned  under  a  code  of  laws  (in  some  parts  already 
purged  from  the  statutes),  the  like'  of  which  no  age, 
no  nation,  no  climate,  ever  saw.  Yet  sore,  as  it  were, 
from  the  scourge  of  active  persecution,  scarce  yet  con- 
firmed in  our  minds,  and  but  lately  secure  in  our  persons 
and  in  our  houses  from  the  daily  alarms  of  search-war- 
rants and  informers,  we  come  before  parliament  for  the 
first  time,  and  we  come  to  ask  alleviation  of  burdens  under 
which  we  can  find  consolation  only  in  the  melancholy 


In  tJu  Reign  of  George  III, 


571 


comparison  of  former  times.  In  this  state  of  recent, 
apprehension  and  troubled,  anxious  hope,  with  minds  un- 
adapted  to  the  precise  observances  of  decorum,  we  rest 
upon  the  simple  merits  of  our  case.  It  is  a  part  of  our  ^ 
calamities  that  we  do  not  know  how  to  tell  them  with 
propriety ;  and  if  our  complaints  should  deviate  into 
remonstrance,  and  we  should  seem  to  upbraid  when  we 
mean  to  supplicate,  we  trust  a  due  allowance  will  be 
made  for  expressions  extorted  by  our  anguish,  or  pro 
ceeding  from  an  inevitable  ignorance  of  form.  Excluded 
from  the  constitution  in  all  its  parts,  and,  in  many 
respects,  aliens  to  the  law,  how  should  we  have  learned 
the  forms  of  parliament  ? 

"The  hardships  we  suffer  proceed  from  the  law  ;  it  is, 
therefore,  only  to  the  fountain  of  the  law  that  we  can  look 
for  relief.  You  are  the  great  council  of  our  sovereign  lord 
the  king  ;  but  you  are  also  subjects  like  ourselves.  The 
bar  of  majesty,  by  the  law  of  the  land  and  by  the  benignity 
of  that  sovereign  whom  it  is  your  glory  to  imitate,  is 
ever  open  to  the  petitions  of  his  people.  As  far  as  we  are 
able  to  discern  the  great  outlines  of  a  constitution  which 
we  know  only  in  speculation,  we  conceive  that  it  is  the 
boast  of  the  constitution  of  these  kingdoms  to  have  asso- 
ciated a  portion  of  the  people  into  the  sovereign  power,  in 
order  that,  not  dazzled  by  the  awe  of  supreme  majesty, 
the  subject  may  find  a  happy  mediatorial  institution,  an 
asylum  wherein  to  deposit  the  burden  of  his  grief,  to  ex- 
pose the  nakedness  of  his  oppressions,  and  indulge  com- 
plaint even  to  exaggeration.  There  were,  indeed,  those 
who  would  have  made  us  believe  that  parliament  was  only 
to  be  approached  with  circumspect  and  timid  steps,  at 
most,  in  general  terms ;  and  that,  wrapped  in  proud  and 
inexorable  slate,  you  would  consider  a  specification  of 
the  wants  of  the  people  as  an  insult,  and  a  reason  for  not 
supplying  them.  •  But  we  knew  it  could  not  be  ;  we  knew 
that  no  senate,  no  king  no  tvrant,  had  ever  professed  to 


572 


Penal  Laws 


turn  his  ear  from  detailed  supplication.  The  majesty  of 
God  Himself  is  willing  to  receive  and  demands  the  in- 
cense of  particular  prayer:  and  shall  we,  who  speak 
from  man  to  man,  from  subject  to  subject,  not  dare  to 
specify  the  measure  and  extent  of  our  crying  necessities? 

"  Despising  that  base  and  hypocritical  affectation,  we 
are  sure  it  is  far  more  congenial  to  the  nature  and  to 
the  temper  of  parliament,  with  a  firm  and  generous  con- 
iidence  to  say,  as  we  say :  Here  is  the  evil,  there  is  the 
remedy  ;  to  you  we  look  for  relief. 

**  Behold  us,  then,  before  you,  three  millions  of  the 
people  of  Ireland,  subjects  of  the  same  king,  inhabitants 
of  the  same  land,  bound  together  by  the  same  social  con- 
tract, contributing  to  the  same  revenues,  defended  by  the 
same  armies,  declared  by  the  authentic  words  of  an  act  of 
parliament  to  be  good  and  loyal  subjects  to  his  majesty, 
his  crown  and  government,  and  yet  doomed  to  one 
general,  unqualified  incapacity,  and  universal  exclusion, 
and  universal  civil  proscription.  We  are  excluded  from 
the  state ;  we  are  excluded  from  the  revenues ;  we  are 
excluded  from  ever}^  distinction,  every  privilege,  every 
office,  every  emolument,  every  civil  trust,  every  cor- 
porate right ;  we  are  excluded  from  the  navy,  from  the 
army,  from  the  magistrature,  from  the  professions  ;  we 
are  excluded  from  the  palladium  of  life,  liberty,  and 
property  :  the  juries  and  inquests  of  our  country.  From 
what  are  we  not  excluded  ?  We  are  excluded  from  the 
constitution ;  we  stand  a  strange  anomaly  in  the  law  ; 
not  acknowledged,  not  disavowed,  not  slaves,  not  free- 
men;  an  exception  to  the  principles  of  jurisprudence;  a 
prodigy  in  the  system  of  civil  institution.  We  incui 
no  small  part  of  the  penalties  of  a  general  outlawry  • 
and  a  general  excommunication.  Disability  meets  us 
at  every  hour,  and  in  every  walk  of  life.  It  cramps 
our  industry,  it  shackles  our  property,  it  depresses  our 
genius,  it  debilitates  our  minds.    Why  are  we  disiian 


In  tJie  Reign  of  George  III. 


chised,  and  why  are  we  degraded?  Or  rather,  why 
do  these  evils  afflict  our  country,  of  which  we  are  no 
inconsiderable  part  ? 

**  We  most  humbly  and  earnestly  supplicate  and  implore 
parliament  to  call  this  law  of  universal  exclusion  to  a 
severe  account,  and  now,  at  last,  to  demand  of  it  upon 
what  principle  it  stands  of  equity,  of  morality,  of  justice, 
or  of  policy ;  and  while  we  request  this  scrutiny  into 
the  law,  we  demand,  also,  the  severest  scrutiny  into  our 
principles,  our  actions,  our  words,  and  our  thoughts. 
Wherein  have  we  failed  as  loyal  and  affectionate  subjects 
to  the  best  of  sovereigns ;  or  as  sober,  peaceable,  and 
useful  members  of  society?  Where  is  that  people  who 
can  offer  the  testimony  of  a  hundred  years'  patient  sub- 
mission to  a  code  of  laws  of  which  no  man  living  is  now 
an  advocate,  without  sedition,  without  murmur,  without 
complaint?  Our  loyalt}'  has  undergone  a  century  of 
severe  persecution  for  the  sake  of  our  religion,  and  we 
have  come  out  of  the  ordeal  with  our  religion  and  with 
our  loyalty. 

"  Why,  then,  are  we  still  left  under  the  ban  of  our 
country  ?  We  differ,  it  is  true,  from  the  national  church 
in  some  points  of  doctrinal  faith.  Whether  it  is  our 
blessing  or  our  misfortune,  He  only  knows  to  whom  all 
things  are  known.  For  this,  our  rehgion,  we  offer  no 
apology.  After  ages  of  learned  and  critical  discussion, 
we  cannot  expect  to  throw  further  light  upon  it.  We 
have  only  to  say  that  it  is  founded  on  revelation,  as  well 
as  the  religion  established  by  law.  Both  you  and  we 
are  regenerated  in  the  same  baptism,  and  profess  our 
belief  in  the  same  Christ:  you,  according  to  the  Church 
of  England  ;  we,  according  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  We 
do  not  exercise  an  abject  or  obscure  superstition.  If  we 
err,  our  errors  have  been,  and  still  are,  sanctioned  bv 
the  examples  of  many  flourishing,  learned,  and  civilized 
nations.    We  do  not  enter,  we  disdain  to  enter,  into  the 


574:  Penal  Laws 

cavils  of  antiquated  sophistry,  and  to  insult  the  under- 
standing of  parliament,  by  supposing  it  necessary  to 
prove  that  a  religion  is  not  incompatible  with  civil 
government  which  has  subsisted  for  so  many  hundred 
years  under  every  possible  form  of  government,  in  some 
tolerated,  in  some  established,  even  to  this  day. 

"  With  regard  to  our  civil  principles,  we  are  unalter- 
ably, deeply  and  zealously  attached  to  his  majesty's 
Derson  and  government.  Good  and  loyal  subjects  we 
are,  and  we  are  declared  by  law  to  be. 

"  With  regard  to  the  constitution  of  the  state,  we  are  as 
much  attached  to  it  as  it  is  possible  for  men  to  be  attached 
to  a  constitution  by  which  they  are  not  avowed.  With 
regard  to  the  constitution  of  the  Church,  we  are,  indeed, 
inviolably  attached  to  our  own:  first,  because  we 
believe  it  to  be  true ;  and  next,  because,  beyond  belief, 
we  know  that  its  principles  are  calculated  to  make  us 
good  men  and  good  citizens.  But,  as  we  find  it  answers 
to  us,  individuall}^  all  the*  useful  ends  of  religion,  wc 
solemnly  and  conscientiously  declare  that  we  are  satisfied 
with  the  present  condition  of  our  ecclesiastical  policy. 

"  With  satisfaction  we  acquiesce  m  the  establishment  o' 
the  national  church ;  we  neither  repine  at  its  possessions, 
nor  envy  its  dignities.  We  are  ready,  upon  this  point,  to 
give  every  assurance  that  is  binding  upon  man. 

With  regard  to  every  other  subject,  and  to  every 
other  calumny,  we  have  no  disavowals,  we  have  no 
declarations,  to  make.  Conscious  of  the  innocence  of 
our  lives,  and  the  purity  of  our  intentions,  we  are  justi- 
fied in  asking  what  reason  of  state  exists  (and  we  deny 
that  any  does  exist)  for  leaving  us  still  in  tne  bondage 
of  the  law,  and  under  the  protracted  restriction  of  penal 
statutes? 

Penalties  suppose,  if  not  crimes,  at  least  a  cause  of 
reasonable  suspicion.  Criminal  imputations  like  those 
(for,  to  be  adequate  to  the  effect,  they  must  be  great 


In  the  Reign  of  George  IIL  575 

indeed)  aie,  to  a  generous  mind,  more  grievous  than 
the  penalties  themselves.  They  incontrovertibly  imply 
that  we  are  considered  by  the  legislature  as  standing  in 
a  doubtful  light  of  fidelity  or  loyalty  to  the  king  or 
to  the  constitution  of  our  country,  and  perhaps  both. 
•  While  on  these  unjust  suppositions  we  are  deprived  of 
the  common  rights  and  privileges  of  British  and  Irish 
subjects,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  say  we  are  contented, 
while  we  endure  a  relentless  civil  proscription,  for  which 
no  cause  is  alleged,  and  for  \vhich  no  reason  can  be 
assigned. 

"  Because  we  now  come,  with  a  clear,  open  and  manly 
voice,  to  insist  upon  the  grievances  under  which  we 
still  labor,  it  is  not  to  be  inferred  that  we  have  forgot 
the  benignant  justice  of  parliament,  which  has  relieved 
us  from  the  more  oppressive,  but  not  the  most  extensive, 
part  of  the  penal  system.  In  those  da3^s  of  affliction, 
when  we  lay  prostrate  under  the  iron  rod,  and,  as  it 
were,  entranced  in  a  gulf  of  persecution,  it  was  necessary 
for  parliament  to  go  the  whole  way,  and  to  stretch  out 
a  saving  hand  to  relieve  us.  We  had  not  the  courage  to 
ook  up  for  hope,  to  know  our  condition,  or  even  to 
conceive  a  remed}'.  It  is  because  the  former  relaxations 
were  not  thrown  away  upon  us ;  it  is  because  we 
begin  to  feel  the  influence  of  somewhat  more  equal  laws, 
and  to  revive  from  our  former  inanition,  that  we  now 
presume  to  stand  erect  before  you.  Conceiving  that 
parliament  has  a  right  to  expect,  as  a  test  of  our  grati- 
tude, that  we  should  no  longer  lie  a  dead  weight  upon 
our  country,  but  come  forward  in  our  turn  to  assist,  witli 
our  voice,  our  exertions  and  our  councils,  in  a  work  to 
which  the  wisdom  and  power  of  parliament  is  incompe- 
tent without  our  cooperation  :  the  application  of  a  policy, 
wholly  new,  to  the  pressing  wants  and  to  the  intimate 
necessities  of  a  people  long  forgotten,  out  of  the  sight 
and  the  knowledge  of  a  superintending  legislature:— 


576  Ptnal  Laws 

accordingly  we  arc  come;  and  we  claim  no  small  merit 
that  we  have  found  our  way  to  the  door  of  parliament. 

"it  has  not  been  made  easy  for  us ;  every  art  and  indus- 
try has  been  exerted  to  obstruct  us.  Attempts  have 
been  made  to  divide  us  into  factions,  and  to  throw  us 
into  confusion.  We  ha,ve  stood  firm  and  united.  We. 
have  received  hints  and  cautions,  obscure  intimations 
and  public  warnings,  to  guard  our  supplications  against 
intimidation.  We  have  resisted  that  species  of  disguised 
and  artful  threat.  We  have  been  traduced,  calumniated, 
and  libelled.  We  have  witnessed  sinister  endeavors 
again  to  blow  the  flame  of  religious  animosity,  and  awake 
the  slumbering  spirit  of  popular  terrors  and  popular 
fury ;  but  we  have  remained  unmoved. 

"We  are,  indeed,  accustomed  to  this  tumid  agitation 
and  ferment  in  the  public  mind.  In  former  times  it  was 
the  constant  precursor  of  more  intense  persecution,  but 
It  has  also  attended  every  later  and  happier  return  of 
letrislative  mercv.  But  whether  it  betokens  us  evil  or 
good,  to  parliament  vv-e  come,  to  seek  at  that  shrine  a 
safeguard  from  impending  danger,  or  a  communication 
of  new  benefits. 

"What,  then,  do  we  ask  of  parliament?  To  be  thor- 
oughly united  and  made  one  with  the  rest  of  our  fellow- 
subjects.  That,  alas!  would  be  our  first,  our  dearest 
wish  ;  but  if  this  is  denied  us,  if  sacrifices  are  to  be  made, 
if  an  example  of  rare  moderation,  we  do  not  aspire  to  the 
condition  of  a  fair  equality,  we  are  not  at  a  loss  to  find, 
in  the  range  of  social  benefits  (which  is  nearly  that  of  our 
present  exclusions)  an  object  which  is  and  ought  to  be 
the  scope  and  resting-place  of  our  wishes  and  our  hopes. 
That  which  we  do  not  ask,  we  are  not  worthy  to  obtain. 
We  knock  that  it  may  be  opened  unto  us.  We  have 
learned  by  tradition  from  our  ancestors,  we  have  heard  bv 
fame  in  foreign  lands,  where  we  have  been  driven  to  seek 
education  in  youth  and  bread  in  manhood,  and  by  the 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


577 


contemplation  of  our  own  mind  we  are  filled  with  a  deep 
and  unalterable  opinion,  that  the  Irish,  formed  upon  the 
nfiodel  of  the  British  constitution,  is  a  blessing  of  inestim- 
able value  ;  that  it  contributes,  and  is  even  essentially 
necessary  for  national  and  individual  happiness.    Of  this 
constitution  we  feel  ourselves  worthy,  and,  though  noi 
t^practicall}^  we  know  the  benefits  of  its  franchises.  Nor 
can  we,  without  a  criminal  dissimulation,  conceal  from 
parliament  the  painful  inquietude  which  is  felt  by  our 
whole  persuasion,  and  the  danger  to  which  we  do  not 
cease  to  be  exposed  by  this  our  total  and  unmerited 
exclusion  from  the  common  rights,  privileges,  and  fran- 
chises conceded  by  our  king  for  the  protection  of  the 
subject.    This  exclusion  is  indeed  the  root  of  every  evil. 
It  is  that  which  makes  property  insecure,  and  industry 
precarious;  it  pollutes  the  stream  of  justice;  it  is  the 
cause  of  daily  humiliation;   it  is  the  insurmountable 
barrier,  the  impassable  line  of  separation  which  divides 
the  nation,  and  which,  keeping  animosity  alive,  prevents 
the  entire  and  cordial  intermixture  of  the  people ;  and 
therefore  inevitably  it  is  that  some  share,  some  portion, 
some  participation,  in  the  liberties  and  franchises  of  our 
country  becomes  the  primary  and  essential  object  of  our 
ardent  and  common  solicitation.    It  is  a  blessing  for 
which  there  is  no  price,  and  can  be  no  compensation.  With' 
it  every  evil  is  tolerable;  without  it  no  advantage  is 
desirable.    In  this,  as  in  all  things,  we  submit  ourselves  to 
the  paramount  authority  of  parliament,  and  we  shall  ac- 
quiesce in  what  is  given,  as  we  do  in  what  is  taken  away  ; 
but  this  is  the  boon  we  ask :  we  hunsrer  and  we  thirst 
for  the  constitution  of  our  country.    If  it  shall  be  deemed' 
otherwise,  and  shall  be  determined  that  we  are  qualified, 
perhaps,  ior  the  base  and  lucrative  tenures  of  professional 
occupation,  but  unworthy  to  perform  the  free  and  noble 
services  of  the  constitution,  we  submit  indeed,  but  we- 
solemnly  protest  against  the  distinction  for  ourselves  and"^ 


578 


Penal  Laws 


our  children.  It  is  no  act  of  ours.  Whatever  judgment 
may  await  our  merits  or  our  failings,  we  cannot  conclude 
ourselves,  by  recognizing  for  a  consideration  the  princi- 
ple of  servility  and  perpetual  degradation.  These  are  the 
sentiments  which  we  feel  from  the  bottom  of  our  hearts, 
and  we  disclose  them  to  the  free  parliament  of  a  monarch 
whose  glory  it  is  to  reign  over  a  free  people  ;  to  you  w'e. 
commit  our  supplications  and  our  cause.  We  have  indeed 
little  to  apprehend,  in  this  benigner  age,  from  the  malig- 
nant aspirations  of  former  times ;  and  not  more  irom 
the  obsolete  calumnies  of  former  strife,  although  we  see 
them  endeavoring  again  to  collect  the  remnants  of  their 
exhausted  venom,  before  the}^  die  forever,  in  a  last  and 
feeble  effort  to  traduce  our  religion  and  our  principles. 

"  Bat,  as  oppression  is  ever  fertile  in  pretexts,  we  find 
the  objections  started  against  us  more  dangerous  because 
they  are  new,  or  new  at  least  in  the  novelty  of  a  shameless 
avowal.  They  are  principally  three  :  first,  it  is  contended 
that  we  are  a  people  originally  and  fundamentally  differ- 
ent from  yourselves,  and  that  our  interests  are  forever 
irreconcilable,  because  some  hundred  years  ago  our 
ancestors  were  conquered  by  yours.  We  deny  the  con- 
clusion, we  deny  the  fact ;  it  is  false.  In  addressing  our- 
selves to  you,  we  speak  to  the  children  of  our  ancestors, 
as  we  are  also  the  children  of  your  forefathers.  Nature 
has  triumphed  over  law  ;  we  are  intermixed  in  blood  ;  we 
are  blended  in  connection  ;  we  are  one  race  ;  we  are  all 
Irishmen,  subjects'of  the  imperial  crown  of  Ireland.  The 
honor  of  parliament  is  concerned  to  repress  the  audacity 
of  those  who  tell  us  that  you  are  a  foreign  colony,  and 
consequently  ought  to  govern  according  to  the  princi- 
ples of  invaders,  and  the  policy  of  recent  usurpation. 
At  least  we  confide  that  you  will  not  suffer  the  walls  of 
parliament  to  be  contaminated  with  that  libel  upon  the 
government  of  Ireland.  The  shaft  which  was  aimed  at 
us.has  struck  yourselves, — a  memorable,  but,  at  the  same 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III.  570 

time,  we  trust,  a  most  auspicious  example  to  teach  both 
you  and  us,  and  our  common  posterity,  that  our  interests 
are  one,  and  that  whatever  affects  the  welUbeing  and 
honor  of  the  Roman  Catholics  is  also  injurious  to  the 
Protestant  interests.  Of  the  same  complexion  and  tend- 
ency are  the  two  objections :  one,  that  our  advancement 
in  property  and  privilege  would  lead  to  a  repeal  of  the 
act  of  settlement;  the  other,  that  our  participation  in  the 
liberties  and  franchises  of  our  country  would  endanger 
the  existence  of  the  constitution  into  which  we  are  ad- 
rpitted. 

"  A  resumption  of  the  lands  forfeited  by  our  and  your 
ancestors  (for  they  are  the  same),  after  the  lapse  of  so 
many  years  (near  three  returns  of  the  longest  period  of 
legal  limitation),  after  the  dispersion  and  extiiK:tion  of  so 
many  families,  after  so  many  transitions  and  divisions, 
repartitions  and  reconsolidations  of  propert}^  so  many 
sales,  judgments,  mortgages,  and  settlements,  and  after 
all  the  various  processes  of  voluntary  and  legal  operation, 
to  conceive  the  revival  of  titles  dormant  for  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  is  an  idea  so  perfectly  chimerical,  so  con- 
trary to  the  experience  of  all  ages  and  all  countries,  so 
repugnant  to  the  principles  of  jurisprudence,  and  so 
utterly  impossible  in  point  of  fact,  that  the  Roman 
Catholics  of  Ireland,  once  for  all,  make  it  their  earnest 
request  to  have  that  question  thoroughly  investigated, 
in  the  assured  hope  that  so  idle,  vain  and  absurd  an  object 
of  public  apprehension,  being  exposed  and  laid  open  to 
the  eye  of  reason,  may  sleep  in  oblivion  forever. 

**As  to  the  other  subject  of  apprehension,  we  have  but 
one  answer  to  make  :  we  desire  to  partake  of  the  constitu- 
tion, and  therefore  we  do  not  desire  to  destroy  it.  Par- 
liament is  now  in  possession  of  our  case,  our  grievances, 
our  sorrows,  our  obstructions,  our  solicitudes,  our  hopes. 
We  have  told  you  the  desire  of  our  hearts.  We  do  not 
ask  to  be  relieved  from  this  or  that  incapacity,  nor  the 


Penal  Laws 


abolition  of  this  or  that  odious  distinction ;  not  even, 
I)crhnps,  to  be,  in  the  fulness  of  time,  and  in  the  accom- 
plishment of  the  great  comprehensive  scheme  of  legisla- 
tion, finally  incorporated  with  you  in  the  enjoyment  of 
the  same  constitution.  Even  beyond  that  mark  we  have 
an  ultimate  and,  if  possible,  an  object  of  more  inferior 
desire.  We  look  for  a  union  of  affections,  a  gradual  and 
therefore  a  total  obliteration  of  all  the  animosities  (on 
our  part  they  are  long  extinct),  and  all  prejudices  which 
have  kept  us  disjoined. 

"  We  come  to  you  a  great  accession  to  the  Protestant 
interest,  with  hearts  and  minds  suitable  to  such  an  end. 
We  do  not  come,  as  jealous  and  suspicious  rivals,  to 
gavel  the  constitution,  but,  with  fraternal  minds,  to  parti- 
cipate in  the  great  incorporeal  inheritance  of  freedom,  to 
be  held  according  to  the  laws  and  customs  of  the  realm, 
and  by  our  immediate  fealty  and' allegiance  to  the  king, 
and  so  may  you  receive  us. 

And  we  shall  ever  pray,"  etc. 

Objections  having  been  made  to  this  petition,  upon 
Mr.  O'Hara's  presenting  it,  as  being  informal,  he  with- 
drew it;  and  the  general  committee,  finding  that  so  bold 
and  explicit  a  statement  of  their  case  had  given  offence, 
prepared  another  petition,  merely  praying  that  the  house 
would  take  into  consideration  whether  the  removal  of 
some  of  the  grievances  of  the  petitioners  might  not  be 
compatible  with  Protestant  security.  This  petition  was 
presented  by  Mr.  Egan  on  the  i8th  of  February,  and 
on  the  20th  was  afterward  rejected,  on  a  division  of  two 
hundred  to  twenty-three. 

On  the  same  day  was  also  rejected  a  petition  from 
the  Protestant  inhabitants  of  Belfast,  which  went  much 
further  than  the  petition  of  the  Catholics,  as  it  required 
that  the)^  should  be  placed  on  the  same  footmg  with 
their  Protestant  fellow-subjects. 

It  was  on  the  3d  of  January  of  this  year  that  Mr.  Burke 


the  Reign  of  George  III. 


581 


published  his  letter  to  Sir  Hercules  Langrishe^  in  which 
he  gave  that  learned  and  liberal  opinion  upon  the  sub- 
ject of  the  electiv^e  franchise  Avhich,  it  is  said,  obtained 
the  royal  assent  to  the  measure  that  afterward  was 
adopted  for  conceding  it.  This  letter  was  admirably 
well  adapted  to  meet  every  species  of  objection,  moral, 
local  and  constitutional.  It  was  calculated  to  remove 
the  prejudices  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  every  sect 
of  Protestant  dissenters ;  and,  above  all,  it  was  quite 
conclusive  as  a  demonstration  of  the  compatibility  of 
'  Catholic  emancipation  with  the  coronation  oath. 

At  a  meeting  of  the  general  committee,  on  the  4th  of 
February,  the  following  resolutions  were  agreed  to,  and 
afterward  published,  with  an  address  to  the  Protestants, 
written  by  jNIr.  R.  Burke,  and  corrected  by  his  father. 
To  this  address  were  added  the  answers  of  the  foreign 
Catholic  universities  to  questions  that  had  been  put  to 
them  in  1789,  at  the  desire  of  Mr.  Pitt,  concerning  the 
existence  and  extent  of  the  Popish  dispensing-power: — 
'■''Resolved^  That  this  committee  has  been  informed  that 
reports  have  been  circulated  that  the  application  of  the 
Catholics  for  relief  extends  to  unlimited  and  total  eman- 
cipation, and  that  attempts  have  been  made,  wickedly 
and  falsely,  to  instil  into  the  minds  of  the  Protestants  of 
this  kingdom  an  opinion  that  our  applications  were  pre- 
ferred in  a  tone  of  menace. 

Resolved,  That  several  Protestant  orentlemen  have  ex 
pressed  great  satisfaction  on  being  individually  informed 
of  the  real  extent  and  respectful  manner  of  the  applica- 
tions for  relief,  and  have  assured  us  that  nothing  could 
have  excited  jealousy  or  apparent  opposition  to  us  from 
our  Protestant  countr3^men,  but  the  above-mentioned 
misapprehension. 

Resolved,  That  we  therefore  deem  it  necessarv  to 
declare  that  the  whole  of  our  late  applications,  whether 
to  his  majesty's  ministers,  to  men  in  power,  or  to  private 


582  Penal  Lazvs 

'rnembers  of  the  legislature,  as  well  as  our  intended  peti 
tion,  neither  did  nor  does  contain  anything,  or  extend 
further,  either  in  substance  or  in  principle,  than  the  four 
following  objects : — 

"  I.  Admission  to  the  profession  and  practice  of  the  law. 

"  2.  Capacity  to  serve  as  county  magistrates. 

"  3.  A  right  to  be  summoned  and  to  serve  on  grand 
and  petty  juries. 

"4.  The  right  of  voting  in  counties  only  for  Protestant 
members  of  parliament,  in  such  a  manner,  however,  as 
that  a  Roman  Catholic  freeholder  should  not  vote  unless 
he  either  rented  or  cultivated  a  farm  of  twenty  pounds 
per  annum,  in  addition  to  his  forty  shilhng  freehold,  or 
else  possessed  a  freehold  to  the  amount  of  twenty  pounds 
a  year. 

Resolved,  That  in  our  opinion  these  applications,  not 
extending  to  any  other  objects  than  the  above,  are 
moderate,  and  absolutely  necessary  for  our  general  allevi- 
ation, and  more  particularly  for  the  protection  of  the 
Catholic  farmers  and  the  peasantry  of  Ireland  ;  and  that 
they  do  not,  in  any  degree,  endanger  either  Church  or 
state,  or  endanger  the  security  of  the  Protestant  interest. 

"  Resolved^  That  we  never  had  an  idea  or  thought  so 
extravagant  as  that  of  menacing  or  intimidating  our  Pro- 
testant brethren,  much  less  the  legislature  ;  and  that  we 
disclaim  the  violent  and  turbulent  intentions  imputed  to 
us  in  some  of  the  public  prints,  and  circulated  in  private 
conversation. 

''Resolved,  That  we  refer  to  the  known  disposition  of 
the  Roman  Catholics  of  this  kingdom,  to  our  dutiful 
Dehavior  during  a  long  series  of  years,  and  particularly 
to  the  whole  tenor  of  our  late  proceedings,  for  the  full 
refutation  of  every  charge  of  sedition  and  disloyalty. 

Resolved,  That,  for  the  rnorc  ample  and  detailed  ex- 
posure of  all  the  evil  reports  and  calumnies  circulated 
against  us,  an  address  to  our  Protestant  fellow-subjects, 


///  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


583 


and  to  the  public  in  general,  be  printed  Dy  the  order 
and  in  the  name  of  the  general  committee.** 

The  queries  and  answers  concerning  the  Popish  dis-. 
pensing-power  are  as  follows  : — 

**  1st.  Has  the  pope,  or  cardinals,  or  any  body  of  men, 
or  any  individual  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  any  civil 
authority,  power,  or  jurisdiction,  or  preeminence  what- 
soever, within  the  realm  of  England? 

"  .2d.  Can  the  pope,  or  cardinals,  or  any  body  of  men, 
or  any  individual  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  absolve  or 
dispense  his  majesty's  subjects  from  their  oath  of  alle- 
giance upon  any  pretext  whatsoever? 

3d.  Is  there  any  principle  in  the  tenets  of  the  Catholic 
faith  by  which  Catholics  are  justified  in  not  keeping 
faith  with  heretics,  or  other  persons  differing  from  them 
in  religious  opinions,  in  any  transaction  either  of  a  public 
or  a  private  nature  ?  " 

Abstract  from  the  answer  of  the  Sacred  Faculty  of 
Divinity  of  Paris  to  the  above  queries. 

After  an  introduction  according  to  the  usual  forms  of 
the  universit}^  they  answer  the  first  query  by  declaring  : — 
Neither  the  pope,  nor  the  cardinals,  nor  any  body  of 
men,  nor  any  other  person  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  hath 
any  civil  authority,  civil  power,  civil  jurisdiction  or  civil 
preeminence  whatever,  in  any  kingdom,  consequently, 
none  in  the  kingdom  of  England,  by  reason  of  virtue  ot 
any  authority,  power,  jurisdiction,  or  preeminence  by 
divine  institution  inherent  in  or  granted,  or  by  any  other 
means  belonging,  to  the  pope  or  the  Church  of  Rome. 
This  doctrine  the  Sacred  Faculty  of  Divinity  of  Paris 
nas  always  held,  and  upon  every  occasion  maintained, 
and  has  rigidly  proscribed  the  contrary  doctrines  from 
her  schools." 

Answer  to  the  second  query  : — 

*•  Neither  the  pope,  nor  the  cardinals,  nor  any  body  of 
men,  nor  any  person  of  the  Church  of  Rome,  can,  by 


5S4 


Pt  Jial  Laws 


virtue  of  the  keys,  absolve  or  release  the  subjects  of  .he 
King  of  England  from  their  oath  of  allegiance." 

This  and  the  first  query  are  so  intimately  connected, 
that  the  answer  of  the  firs^  immediately  and  naturally 
applies  to  the  second,  etc. 

Answer  to  the  third  quer\'' : — 
There  is  no  tenet  in  the  Catholic  Church  by  which 
Catholics  are  justified  in  not  keeping  ^aith  with  heretics 
or  those  who  differ  from  them  in  matters  of  religion. 
The  tenet,  that  it  is  lawful  to  break  faith  with  heretics,  is 
so  repugnant  to  common  honesty,  and  the  opinions  of 
Catholics,  that  there  is  nothing  of  which  thos'e  who  have 
defended  the  Catholic  faith  against  Protestants  have 
complained  more  heavily  than  the  malice  and  calumny 
of  their  adversaries  in  imputing  this  tenet  to  them,"  etc., 
etc. 

"  Given  at  Paris,  in  the  General  Assembly  of  the 
Sorbonne,  held  on  Thursday,  the  eleventh  day  before  the 
Calends  of  March,  1789."    (Signed  in  due  form.)  . 

*'  University  of  Louvain. 

"  The  Faculty  of  Divinity  at  Louvain,  having  been 
requested  to  give  her  opinion  upon  the  questions  above 
stated,  does  it  with  readiness;  but  struck  with  astonish- 
ment that  such  questions  should,  at  the  end  of  this 
eighteenth  century,  be  proposed  to  any  learned  body  by 
inhabitants  of  a  kingdom  that  glories  in  the  talents  and 
discernment  of  its  natives.  The  Facultv  beins:  assembled 
for  the  above  purpose,  it  is  agreed,  with  the  unanimous 
assent  of  all  voices,  to  answer  the  first  and  second 
queries  absolutely  in  the  negative. 

The  Faculty  does  not  think  it  incumbent  upon  her,  in 
this  place,  to  enter  upon  the  proof  of  her  opinion,  or  to 
show  how  it  is  supported  by  passages  in  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tui^es  or  the  writings  of  antiquity.  That  has  already 
been  done  by  Bossuet,  De  Marca,  the  two  Barclays, 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


5^5 


Goldastus,  the  Pithasuses,  Argentre,  Widrini^tori,  and  his 
majesty,  King"  James  I,  in  -his  Dissertation  against  Bel- 
larmine  and  Du  Perron,  and  by  many  others,"  etc.,  etc. 

The  Faculty  then  proceeds  to  declare  that  the  sover- 
eign power  of  the  state  is  in  nowise  (not  even  indirectly, 
as  it  is  termed)  subject  to,  or  dependent  upon,  any  other 
power,  thougn  it  be  a  spiritual  power,  or  even  though 
it  be  instituted  for  eternal  salvation,  etc.,  etc. 

That  no  man,  or  any  assembly  of  men,  however 
eminent  in  dignity  and  power,  nor  even  the  whole  body 
of  the  Catholic  Church,  though  assembled  in  general 
council,  can,  upon  any  ground  of  pretence  whatsoever, 
weaken  the  bond  of  union  between  the  sovereign  and 
the  people,  still  less  can  they  absolve  or  free  the  subiects 
from  their  oath  of  allegiance. 

Proceeding  to  the  third  question,  the  said  Faculty  ot 
Divinity,  in  perfect  wonder  that  such  a  question  should 
be  proposed,  most  positively  and  unequivocally  answers 
that  there  is  not,  and  there  never  has  been,  among  the 
Catholics,  or  in  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of  Rome, 
any  law  or  principle  which  makes  it  lawful  for  Catholics 
to  break  their  faith  with  heretics  or  others  of  a  different 
persuasion  from  themselves,  in  matters  of  religion,  either 
hi  public  or  private  concerns. 

"  The  Faculty  declares  the  doctrine  of  the  Catholics  to 
be,  that  the  divine  and  natural  law,  which  makes  it  a 
duty  to  keep  faith  and  promises,  is  the  same,  and  is 
neither  shaken  or  diminished  even  if  those  with  whom*  the 
engagement  is  made  hold  erroneous  opinions  in  mat- 
ters of  religion,"  etc.,  etc. 

(Signed  in  due  form  on  the  i8th  November,  178S.) 

"  University  of  Valladolid. 
"  To  the  first  question  it  is  answered,  that  neither 
pope,  cardinals,  or  even  a  general  council,  have  any  civil 
;iuthorit3',  power,  jurisdiction  or  preeminence,  directly 


5S6 


Penal  Laws 


or  indirectly,  in  the  kingdom  o\  Great  Britain,  or  over 
any  other  kingdom  or  province  in  which  they  possess 
no  temporal  dominion. 

**  To  the  second  it  is  answered,  that  neither  pope  nor 
cardinals,  nor  even  a  general  council,  can  absolve  the 
subjects  of  Great  Britain  from  their  oaths  of  allegiance, 
or  dispense  with  their  obligation. 

To  the  third  it  is  answered,  that  the  obligation  of 
keeping  faith  is  grounded  on  the  law  of  nature,  which 
binds  all  men  equally,  without  respect  to  their  religious 
opinions ;  and  with  regard  to  Catholics,  it  is  still  more 
cogent,  as  it  is  confirmed  by  the  principles  of  their 
rehgion." 

(Signed  in  the  usual  form,  February  17th,  1789.) 

While  the  general  committee  were  occupied  in  carry- 
ing these  measures  into  effect,  parliament  had  passed  a 
law*  for  removing  part  of  the  restraints  and  disabili- 
ties, to  which  the  Catholics  were  liable.  It  was  intro- 
duced into  the  House  of  Commons  by  Sir  H.  Langrishe, 
and  being  suppo-rted  by  governmicnt,  it  met  with  little 
opposition. 

But  the  conduct  of  government  on  this  occasion  was 
so  suspicious,  and  its  favors  conferred  with  so  bad  a 
grace,t  that  it  did  not  in  the  least  degree  contribute  to 
appease  the  irritation  which  its  former  conduct,  in  1791, 
had  so  justly  given  rise  to. 

By  this  aCt,  Catholics  may  be  called  to  the  bar,  and 
may  be  admitted  as  students  into  the  King's  Inns.  Attor- 
neys may  take  Catholic  apprentices,  and  are  relieved 
from  the  necessity  of  educating  their  children  Protestants, 
and  barristers  may  marry  Catholics.  Catholic  barristers 
and  apprentices  to  attorneys  must,  nevertheless,  qualify 


•  32  George  III.  c  21. 

t  This  measure  was  introduced  into  the  House  of  Commons  without  an^ 
communication  with  the  general  committee. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III.  5S7 

themselves  for  the  benefits  of  this  act  by  taking  the  oath 
of  the  13th  and  14th  George  III,  c.  35. 

By  this  act,  so  much  of  9  William  III,  c.  3,  and  2 
Anne,  c.  6,  as  prevents  Protestants  from  intermarrying 
with  Papists,  is  repealed  ;  but  Protestants  married  to 
Catholics  are  not  to  vote  at  elections ;  and  the  law  is 
not  altered  which  makes  it  a  capital  felony  for  a  priest 
to  celebrate  the  marriage  of  a  Protestant  and  a  Catholic, 
though  the  very  next  act  in  the  statute-book  enables  a 
Presbyterian  clergyman  to  celebrate  the  marriage  of  a 
Protestant  and  a  Presbyterian. 

By  this  act,  also,  the  7  William  III,  for  restraining 
foreign  education,  is  repealed,  and  Catholics  are  per- 
mitted to  teach  school  without  taking  out  a  license  from 
the  ordinary  ;  and  so  much,  likewise,  of  8  Anne,  c.  3,  is 
repealed  which  enacts  that  no  Papists  shall  take  more 
than  two  apprentices. 

In  the  course  of  the  debates  upon  this  act,  the  Cath- 
olics were  accused  of  professing  tenets  inimical  to  good 
order  and  government,  and  with  harboring  pretensions 
to  the  forfeited  estates  of  their  forefathers,  and  with  wish- 
ing to  subvert  the  existing  establishment,  that  they 
might  reinstate  a  Popish  one  instead.  The  general  com- 
mittee were  also  accused  of  being  turbulent  and  seditious 
agitators.  It  was  asserted  that  the  petition  which  they 
presented  this  year  to  parliament  was  the  act  of  an 
obscure  faction,  confined  merely  to  the  capital,  and  dis- 
avowed by  the  great  mass  of  the  Catholics. 

In  order  to  repel  the  first  of  these  accusations,  the 
declaration  of  1774,  which  has  already  been  introduced 
into  this  work,  was  republished,  and  signed  by  Dr.  Tory 
and  the  principal  Catholic  clergy  and  laity  of  the  kingdom. 
The  second  charge  was  not  easy  to  be  contradicted.  It 
was  one  of  most  serious  importance  to  the  interests  of  the 
whole  body,  and,  if  suffered  to  pass  without  the  fallacy  of 
it  being  exposed,  would  have  contributed  to  defeat  all 


588 


Penal  Laws 


the  exertions  which  had  been  made  to  obtain  redress. 
Urged  by  these  considerations,  and  also  by  a  communi- 
cation which,  about  this  time,  was  made  from  the  first 
authority,  that  a  further  apphcation  for  rehef  would  have 
great  weight  with  his  majesty  and  with  parliament,  if 
the  committee  were  qualified  to  declare  that  it  was  the 
measure  of  every  Catholic  in  the  kingdom,*  the  committee 
devised  a  plan  by  which  a  convention  of  delegates  should 
be  held,  elected  by  the  whole  Catholic  body.  A  circular 
letter  was  immediately  written,  directing  that  each  parish 
should  proceed  to  choose  one  or  two  electors,  and  that 
these  electors  should  then  elect  from  one  to  four  dele- 
gates, as  it  might  appear  most  expedient  to  them.  Their 
directions  were  obeyed,  and  carried  into  effect  with  so 
much  promptitude  and  good  order,  that  the  convention 
were  able  to  meet  on  the  3d  of  December,  without  the 
smallest  degree  of  tumult  or  agitation  having  occurred 
in  any  part  of  the  kingdom. 

In  the  meantime,  this  circular-letter  had  been  laid  hold 
of  by  the  government,  as  a  proper  instrument  with  which 
to  rekindle  the  embers  of  religious  animosities.  Where 
the  partisans  of  government  were  sufficiently  strong, 
corporate  and  county  meetings  were  held  to  reprobate 
the  plan  of  the  general  committee  ;  but  if  defeat,  or  even 
formidable  resistance,  was  apprehended,  similar  resolu- 
tions were  enterod  into  by  the  grand  juries,  where 
success  could  easily  be  secured  from  the  influence  of 
government  in  tneir  appointment. 

In  order  to  counteract  the  effect  of  these  resolutions, 
thx)se  Protestants  who  had  the  virtue  and  the  goqd  sense 
neither  to  become  the  toolsnor  thedupes  of  government, 
held  a  great  number  of  meetings  in  different  towns  and 
districts. 

Some  few,  with  Londonderry,  at  tneir  head,  expressed 

*  See  the  plan  for  conducting  the  election  of  delegates,  published  1793. 
r louden,  vol.  ii,  Ap.  89. 


/;/  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


589 


^themselves  favorable  to  a  gradual  admission  of  the 
Catholics;  but  the  great  majority  followed  the  example 
of  an  immense  body  of  volunteers  who,  when  assemb  ed 
together  at  their  commemoration  meeting,  declared  their 
sentiments  in  favor  of  the  immediate  and  unqualified 
extension  of  the  right  of  suffrage  to  the  whole  Catholic 
body. 

When  the  convention  met  in  December,  their  proceed- 
ings were  wise,  temperate,  and  decisive,  and  conducted 
without  any  violation  of  the  laws  of  the  land,  or  of  the 
good  order  of  society.  At  the  first  meeting  the  follow- 
ing petition  to  the  king  was  unanimously  agreed  to, 
pursuant  to  instructions  which  had  been  given  to  each 
delegate  by  his  respective  electors : — 

To  THE  King's  Most  Excellent  Majesty,  the  hum- 
ble .PETITION  OF  THE  UNDERSIGNED  CATHOLICS,  ON 
BEHALF  OF  THEMSELVES  AND  THE  REST  OF  HIS  CaTF 
OLIC  SUBJECTS  OF  THE  KINGDOM  OF  IRELAND. 

Most  Gracious  Sovereign  : — 

"  We,  your  majesty *5  most  dutiful  and  loyal  subjects 
of  your  kingdom  of  Ireland,  professing  the  Catholic 
religion,  presume  to  approach  your  majesty,  who  are 
the  common  father  of  ail  your  pet)ple,  and  humbly  to 
submit  to  your  consideration  the  manifold  incapacities 
and  oppressive  disqualifications  under  which  we  labor. 

"  For,  may  it  please  your  majesty,  after  a  century  oi 
uninterrupted  loyalty,  in  which  time  five* foreign  wars 
and  two  domestic  rebellions  have  occurred  :  after  havins: 
taken  every  oath  of  allegiance  and  fidelity  to  your 
majcst}^  and  given,  and  being  still  readv  to  give,  every 
pledge  which  can  be  devised  for  their  peaceable 
demeanor  and  unconditional  submission  to  the  laws,  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  stand  obnoxious  to  a  lonsr  catalosrue 
ot  statutes,  inflictins:  on  dutiful  and  meritorious  sub- 
jects  pains  and  penalties  of  an  extent  and  seventy  which 


590 


Penal  Laws 


scarce  any  degree  of  delinquency  can  warrant,  and  pro- 
longed to  a  period  when  no  necessity  can  be  alleged 
to  justify  their  continuance. 

In  the  first  place  we  beg  leave,  with  all  humility,  to 
represent  to  your  majesty  that,  notwithstanding  the 
lowest  departments  in  your  majesty's  fleets  and  armies 
are  largely  supplied  by  our  numbers,  and  your  revenue 
in  this  country  to  a  great  degree  supported  by  our  con- 
tributions, we  are  disabled  from  serving  your  majesty  in 
any  office  of  trust  and  emolument  whatsoever,  civil  or 
military, — a  proscription  which  disregards  capacity  or 
merit,  admits  of  neither  qualification  nor  degree,  and  rests 
as  an  universal  stigma  of  distrust  upon  the  whole  body 
of  your  Catholic  subjects. 

"  We  are  interdicted  from  all  municipal  stations,  and 
the  franchise  of  all  guilds  and  corporations ;  and  our 
exclusion  from  the  benefits  annexed  to  those  situations 
is  not  an  evil  terminating  in  itself,  for,  by  giving  an 
advantage  over  us  to  those  in  whom  they  are  exclusively 
vested,  they  establish  throughout  the  kingdom  a  species 
of  qualified  monopolv,  uniformly  operating  in  our  dis- 
favor, contrary  to  the  spirit,  and  highly  detrimental  to 
the  freedom,  of  trade. 

We  may  not  found  nor  endow  any  university,  college 
or  school  for  the  education  of  our  children,  and  wc 
are  interdicted  from  obtaining  degrees  in  the  University 
of  Dublin  by  the  several  charters  and  statutes  now  in 
force  therein. 

We  are  totally  prohibited  from  keeping  or  using 
weapons  for  the  defence  of  our  houses,  families  or 
persons,  whereby  we  are  exposed  to  the  violence  of 
burglary,  robbery  and  assassination ;  and  to  enforce 
this  prohibition,  contravening  that  great  original  law 
of  nature  which  enjoins  us  to  self-defence,  a  variety  of 
statutes  exist,  not  less  grievous  and  oppressive  in  theii 
provisions  than  unjust  in  their  object;  b\"  one  of  which, 


In  the  Reign  of  George  IIL  591 

enacted  so  latel_y  as  within  these  sixteen  years,  every 
one  of  your  majesty's  Catholic  subjects,  of  whatever 
rank  or  degree,  peer  or  peasant,  is  compellable  b}'-  any 
magistrate  to  come  forward  and  convict  hin^self  of  what 
may  be  thought  a  singular  offence  in  a  country  profess- 
ing to  be  free :  keeping  arms  for  his  defence ;  or,  if  he 
shall  refuse  so  to  ,  do,  may  incur  not  only  fine  and  im- 
prisonment, but  the  vile  and  ignominious  punishments 
of  the  pillory  and  whipping, — penalties  appropriated  to 
the  most  infamous  malefactors,  and  more  terrible  to  a 
liberal  mind  than  death  itself.  No  Catholic  whatsoever, 
as  we  apprehend,  has  his  personal  property  secure.  The 
law  allows  and  encourages -the  disobedient  and  unnatural 
child  to  conform,  and  deprive  him  of  it;  the  unhappy 
father  does  not,  even  by  the  surrender  of  his  all,  purchase 
his  repose:  he  may  be  attacked  by  new  bills,  if  his 
future  industry  be  successful,  and  again  be  plundered  by 
due  process  of  law.. 

"  We  are  excluded,  or  may  be  excluded,  from  all 
petit  juries  in  civil  actions,  where  one  of  the  parties  is  a 
Protestant ;  and  that  we  are  further  excluded  from  all 
petit  juries  in  trials,  by  information  or  indictment,  founded 
oa  any  of  the  Popery  laws,  by  which  la\v  we  most 
humbly  submit  to  your  majesty  that  your  loyal  subjects, 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  are  in  this,  their  native  land,  in  a 
worse  situation  than  that  of  aliens,  for  they  ma}^  demand 
an  equitable  privilege  denied  to  us :  of  having  half  their 
jury  aliens  like  themselves. 

"  We  may  not  serve  on  grand  juries  unless, — which  it 
is  scarcely  possible  can  ever  happen, — there  sliould  not  be 
found  a  sufficiency  of  Protestants  to  complete  the  panel, 
contrary  to  that  humane  and  equitable  principle  of  the 
law  w^hich  says  that  no  man  shall  be  convicted  of  any 
capital  offence,  unless  by  the  concurring  verdicts  of  two 
juries  of  his  neighbors  and  equals,  whereby  (and  to  this 
we  humbly  presume  more  particularly  to  iii^plore  your 


592  .    Paial  Lan'S 

* 

royal  attention)  we  are  deprived  of  the  great  palladium 
of  the  constitution  :  trial  by  our  peers,  independent  of  the 
manifest  injustice  of  our  property  being  taxed  in  assess- 
ments of  a  body  from  which  we  are  formally  excluded. 

'*  We  avoid  a  further  enumeration  of  inferior  griev- 
ances; but,  may  it  please  your  majesty,  there  remains 
one  mcapacity  which  your  loyal  subjects,  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland,  feel  with  most  poignant  anguish  of  mind,  as 
being  the  badge  of  unmerited  disgrace  and  ignominy, 
and  the  cause  and  bitter  aggravation  of  all  our  other 
calamities :  we  are  deprived  of  the  elective  franchise,  to 
the  manifest  perversion  of  the  spirit  of  the  constitution, 
inasmuch  as  your  faithful  subjects  are  thereby  taxed 
where  they  are  not  represented  actually  or  virtually, 
and  bound  by  laws,  in  the  framing  of  which  they  have  no 
power  to  give  or  withhold  their  assent.  And  we  most 
humbly  implore  ybur  majesty  to  believe  that  this,  our 
prime  and  heavy  grievance,  is  not  an  evil  merely  specu- 
lative, but  is  attended  with  great  distress  to  all  ranks,  and, 
in  many  instances,  with  the  total  ruin  and  destruction 
of  the  lower  orders  of  your  majesty's  faithful  and  loyal 
subjects,  the  Catholics  of  Ireland ;  for,  may  it  please  your 
majesty, — not  to  mention  the  infinite  variety  of  advan- 
tages, in  point  of  protection  and  otherwise,  which  the 
enjoyment  of  the  elective  franchise  gives  to  those  who 
possess  it,  nor  the  consequent  inconveniences  to  which 
those  who  are  deprived  thereof  a  :e  liable  ;  not  to  mention 
the  disgrace  to  ihree-fourths  of  your  loyal  subjects  of 
Ireland,  of  living,  the  only  body  of  men  incapable  of  fran- 
chise, in  a  nation  possessing  a  free  constitution, — it  con- 
tinually happens,  and  of  necessity,  from  the  malignant 
nature  of  the  law,  must  happen,  that  multitudes  of  the 
Catholic  tenantry  in  divers  counties  in  this  kingdom  are, 
at  the  expiration  of  their  leases,  expelled  from  their  tene- 
ments and  farms  to  make  room  for  Protestant  freeholders, 
who,  by  their  votes,  may  contribute  to  the  weight  and 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III,  593 

importance  of  their  landlords :  a  circumstance  wliich 
renders  the  recurrence  of  a  general  election,  that  period 
which  is  the  boast  and  laudable  triumph  of  our  Protestant 
brethren,  a  visitation  and  heavy  curse  to  us,  your  majesty's 
dutiful  and  loyal  subjects.  And,  may  it  please  your 
majesty,  this  uncertainty  of  possession  to  your  majesty's 
Catholic  subjects  operates  as  a  perpetual  restraint  and 
discouragement  on  industr}?-  and  the  spirit  of  cultivation, 
whereby  it  happens  that  this,  your  majesty's  kingdom  of 
Ireland,  possessing  many  and  great  natural  advantages 
of  soil  and  climate,  so  as  to  be  exceeded  therein  by  few, 
if  any,  countries  on  the  earth,  is  yet  prevented  from 
availing  herself*  thereof  so  fully  as  she  otherwise  might, 
to  the  furtherance  of  your  majesty's  honor,  and  the  more 
effectual  support  of  your  service. 

"  And,  may  it  please  your  majesty,  the  evil  does  not 
even  rest  here ;  for  many  of  your  majesty's  Catholic 
subjects,  to  preserve  their  families  from  total  destruction, 
submit  to  a  nominal  conformity,  against  their  conviction 
and  their  conscience,  and  preferring  perjury  to  famine, 
take  oaths  which  they  utterly  disbelieve  :  a  circumstance 
which,  we  doubt  not,  will  shock  3^our  majesty's  well- 
known  and  exemplary  piety,  not  less  than  the  misery 
which  drives  those  unhappy  wretches  to  so  desperate  a 
measure,  must  distress  and  wound  your  royal  clemency 
and  commiseration. 

*'  And  may  it  please  3'our  majesty,  though  we  might 
here  rest  "our  case  on  its  own  merits,  justice  and 
expediency,  yet  we  further  presume  humbly  to  submit  to 
your  majesty  that  the  right  of  franchise  was,  with  divers 
other  rights,  enjoyed  by  the  Catholics  of  this  kingdom, 
from  the  first  adoption  of  the  English  constitution  by 
our  forefathers,  was  secured  to  at  least  a  great  part  of 
our  body  by  the  Treaty  of  Limerick,  1691,  guaranteed 
by  your  majesty's  loyal  predecessors.  King  Willinm 
and  Queen  Mary,  and  finally  confirmed  and  ratihcd  by 


594 


Peyial  Laws 


parliament;  notwithstanding  which,  and  breach  of  the 
public  faith  of  the  nation,  thus  solemnly  pledged,  for 
which  our  ancestors  paid  a  valuable  consideration,  in  the 
surrender  of  their  arms  and  a  great  part  of  this  kingdom, 
and  notwithstanding  the  most  scrupulous  adherence, 
on  our  part,  to  the  terms  of  the  said  treaty,  and  our 
unremitting  loyalty  from  that  day  to  the  present,  the 
said  right  of  elective  franchise  was  finally  and  universally 
taken  away  from  the  Catholics  of  Ireland  so  lately  as  the 
first  year  of  his  majesty,  King  George  II. 

"And  when  we  thus  presume  to  submit  this  infraction 
of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  to  your  majesty's  royal  notice, 
it  is  not  that  we  ourselves  consider  it  to  be  the  strong 
part  of  our  case,  for,  though  our  rights  were  recognized, 
they  were  by  no  means  created  by  that  treaty  ;  and  we 
do  with  all  humility  conceive  that,  if  no  such  event  as 
the  said  treaty  had  ever  taken  place,  your  majest3^*s 
Catholic  subjects,  from  their  unvarying  loyalty  and 
dutiful  submission  to  the  laws,  and  from  the'  great 
support  afforded  by  them  to  your  majesty's  government 
in  this  country,  as  well  as  in  their  personal  service  in 
your  majesty's  fleets  and  armies,  as  from  the  taxes  and 
revenues  levied  on  their  property,  are  fully  competent 
and  justly  entitled  to  participate  and  enjoy  the  blessings 
of  the  constitution  of  their  countr3\ 

"  And  now  that  we  have,  with  all  humility,  submitted 
our  grievances  to  your  majesty,  permit  us,  most  gracious 
sovereign,  again  to  represent  our  sincere  attachment  to 
the  constitution,  as  established  in  the  three  estates  of 
king,  lords,  and  commons ;  our  uninterrupted  loyalty, 
peaceful  demeanor,  and  submission  to  the  laws  for  one 
hundred  years,  and  our  determination  to  persevere  in  the 
same  dutiful  conduct,  which  has,  under  your  majesty's 
happy  auspices,  procured  us  those  relaxations  of  the 
penal  statutes  which  the  wisdom  of  the  legislature  has, 
from  time  to  time,  thought  proper  to  grant.    We  humbly 


///  the  Reign  of  George  TIL 


595 


presume  to  hope  that  your  majest}',  in  your  paternal 
goodness  and  affection  toward  a  numerous  and  oppressed 
body  of  your  loyal  subjects,  may  be  graciously  pleased 
to  recommend  to  your  parliament  in  Ireland  to  take 
into  their  consideration  the  whole  of  our  situation,  our 
numbers,  our  merits,  and  our  sufferings;  and  as  we  do 
not  give  place  to  any  of  your  majesty's  subjects  in  loyalty 
and  attachment  to  your  sacred  person,  we  cannot  sup- 
press our  wishes  of  being  restored  to  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  constitution  of  our  country,  and  there- 
by becoming  more  worthy,  as  well  as  more  capable,  of 
rendering  your  majesty  that  service  which  it  is  not  less 
our  duty  than  our  inclination  to  afford. 

So  may  your  majesty  transmit  to  your  latest  pos- 
terity a  crown  secured  by  public  advantage  and  public 
affection,  and  so  may  your  royal  person  become,  if  pos- 
sible, more  dear  to  your  grateful  people." 

On  the  2d  January,  1793,  the  gentlemen  who  had  been 
deputed  to  present  this  petition,  were  introduced  to  his 
majesty  by  Mr.  Dundas,  and  on  the  loth  of  the  same 
month  Lord  Westmoreland,  in  a  speech  from  the  throne 
to  both  houses  of  parliament,  said  :  "  I  have  it  in  particu- 
lar command  from  his  majesty  to  recommend  it  to  you 
to  apply  yourselves  to  the  consideration  of  such  measures 
as  may  be  most  likely  to  strengthen  and  cement  a  general 
union  of  sentiment,  among  all  classes  of  his  majesty's 
subjects,  in  support  of  the  established  constitution.  With 
this  view  his  majesty  trusts  that  the  situation  of  his 
majesty's  Catholic  subjects  will  engage  your  serious 
attention,  and  in  consideration  of  this  subject  he  relies 
on  the  wisdom  and  liberality  of  parliament." 

In  a  few  days  afterward  Major  Hobart,  the  chief  sec- 
retary of  the  lord-lieutenant,  presented  to  the  House  of 
Commons  a  petition  from  the  Catholics,  and  soon  after 
the  royal  assent  was  given  to  the  following  "  act  for 


596 


Penal  Laws, 


affording  relief  to  his  majesty's  Popish,  or  Roman  Cath. 
olic,  subjects  of  Ireland  :" — 

''Whereas  various  acts  of  parliament  have  been  passed 
imposing  on  his  majesty's  subjects  professing  the  Popish, 
or  Roman  Catholic  religion,  many  restraints  and  dis- 
abilities to  which  other  subjects  of  this  realm  are  not  lia- 
ble, and  from  the  peaceable  and  loyal  demeanor  of  his 
majesty's  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  subjects  it  is  fit  that 
such  restraints  and  disabilities  shall  be  discontinued : 

"I.  Be  it  therefore  enacted  by  the  king's  most  excellent 
majesty,  by  and  with  the  advice  and  consent  of  the  lords 
spiritual  and  temporal,  and  commons,  in  this  present 
parliament  assembled,  and  by  the  authority  of  the  same, 
that  his  majesty's  subjects  being  Papists,  or  persons 
professing  the  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  religion,  or 
married  to  Papists,  or  persons  professing  the  Popish,  or 
Roman  Catholic  religion,  or  educating  any  of  their  chil- 
dren in  that  religion,  shall  not  be  liable  or  subject  to  any 
penalties,  forfeitures,  disabilities  or  incapacities,  or  to 
any  laws  for  the  limitation,  charging  or  discovering  of 
their  estates  and  property,  real  or  personal,  or  touching 
the  acquiring  of  property,  or  securities  affecting  property, 
save  such  as  his  majesty's  subjects  of  the  Protestant 
religion  are  liable  and  subject  to;  and  that  such  parts  of 
all  oaths  as  arc  required  to  be  taken  by  persons,  in  order 
to  qualify  themselves  for  votinor  at  elections  for  menibers 
to  serve  in  parliament ;  and  also  such  parts  of  all  oaths 
required  to  be  taken  by  persons  voting  at  elections  for 
members  to  serve  in  parliament  as  import  to  deny  that 
the  said  person  taking  the  same  is  a  Papist,  or  married  to 
a  Papist,  or  educaies  his  children  in  the  Popish  religion, 
shall  not  hereafter  be  required  to  be  taken  by  any  voter, 
but  shall  be  omitted  by  the  person  administering  the 
same  ;  and  that  it  shall  not  be  necessary,  in  order  to  en- 
title a  Papist,  or  person  professing  the  Popish,  or  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  to  vote  at  an  election  for  memoers  to 


/;/  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


507 


serve  in  parliament,  that  he  should  at,  or  previous  to  his 
voting,  take  the  oaths  of  allegiance  and  abjuration,  any 
statute  now  in  force  to  the  contrary  of  any  of  the  said 
matters  in  anywise  notwithstanding. 

2.  Provided  always,  and  be  it  further  enacted,  that 
all  Papists,  or  persons  professing  the  Popish,  or  Roman 
Catholic,  religion,  who  may  claim  to  have  a  right  of 
voting  for  members  to  serve  in  parliament,  or  of  voting 
for  magistrates  in  any  city,  town  corporate,  or  borough, 
within  this  kingdom,  be  hereby  required  to  perform  all 
qualifications,  registries,  and  other  requisites,  which  arc 
now  required  of  his  maj.esty's  Protestant  subjects  in  like 
cases  by  any  law  or  laws  now  in  force  in  this  kingdom, 
save  and  except  such  oaths  and  parts  of  oaths  as  are 
hereinbefore  excepted. 

"  3.  And  provided  always,  that  nothing  hereinbefore 
contained  shall  extend,  or  be  construed  to  extend,  to 
repeal  or  alter  any  law  or  act  of  parliament  now  in  force, 
by  which  certain  qualifications  are  required  to  be  per- 
formed by  persons  enjoyin'g  any  offices  or  places  of 
trust  under  his  majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors,  other 
than  as  hereinafter  is  enacted. 

4.  Provided  also,  that  nothing  herein  contained  shall 
extend,  or  be  construed  to  extend,  to  give  Papists,  or 
persons  professing  the  Popish  religion,  a  right  to  vote  at 
any  parish  vestry  for  levying  money  to  rebuild  or  repair 
any  parish  church,  or  respecting  the  devising  or  dis- 
posal of  the  income  of  anv  estate  belonging  to  any 
church  or  parish,  or  for  the  salary  of  the  parish  clerk,  or 
at  the  selection  of  any  churchwarden. 

"  5.  Provided  always,  that  nothing  contained  in  tins 
act  shall  extend  to,  or  be  construed  to  affect,  any  action 
'or  suit  now  pending,  which  shall  have  been  brought  or 
instituted  previous  to  the  commencement  of  this  session 
ol  parliament. 

Provided  also,  that  nothing  herein  contained  shall 


598 


Penal  Laws 


exteiiQ  to  iiutliorize  any  Papist,  or  person  professing  the 
Popish,  or  R(  man  Catholic  religion,  to  have  or  keep  in 
his  hands  or  possession  any  arms,  armor,  ammunition, 
or  any  warlike  stores,  sword-blades,  barrels,  locks,  or 
stocks  of  guns  or  firv;-arms,  or  to  exempt  such  persons 
from  any  forfeiture  or  penalty  inflicted  by  any  act  re- 
specting arms,  armor  or  ammunition,  in  the  hands  or 
possession  of  any  Papist,  or  respecting  Papists  having  or 
Keeping  su^h  warlike  stores,  save  and  except  Papists,  or 
persons  of  the  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  religion  seized 
of  a  freehold  estate  of  ;^ioo  a  year,  or  possessed  of  a 
personal  estate  of  £\,ooo  or  upw'ard,  who  are  hereby 
authorized  to  keep  arms  and  ammunition  as  Protestants 
now' by  law  may;  and  also  save  and  except  Papists,  or 
Roman  Catholics,  possessing  a  freehold  estate  of;^io 
yearly  value  and  less  than  £\oo^  or  a  personal  estate  of 
£'}po  and  less  than  ii"i,ooo,  who  shall  have,  at  the  session 
of  the  peace  in  the  county  in  which  they  reside,  taken  the 
oath  of  allegiance  prescribed  to  be  taken  by  an  act  passed 
in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  years  of  his  present 
majesty's  reign,  entitled  *  an  act  to  enable  his  majest3'*s 
subjects,  of  whatever  persuasion,  to  testify  their  allegiance 
to  him,'  and  also,  in  open  court,  swear  and  subscribe  an 
affidavit  that  they  are  possessed  of  a  freehold  estate,  yield- 
ing a  clear  yearly  profit  to  the  person  making  the  same 
of  £\o.  or  a  personal  property  of  ;^300  above  his  just  debts, 
specifying  therein  the  name  and  nature  of  such  freehold, 
and  nature  of  such  personal  property,  which  affidavits 
shall  be  carefully  preserved  by  the  clerk  of  the  peace,  who 
shall  have  for  his  trouble  a  fee  of  sixpence,  and  no  more, 
for  every  such  affidavit ;  and  the  persons  making  such 
affidavits,  and  possessing  such  property,  may  keep  and  use 
arms  and  ammunition  as  Protestants  may,  so  long  as  they 
shall  respectively  possess  a  property  of  the  annual  value 
of  ;^io  and  upward,  if  freehold,  or  the  value  of  ;^300  if 
personal,  any  statute  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 


///  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


599 


J.  And  be  it  enacted  that  it  shall  and  may  be  lawful 
for  Papists,  or  persons  professing  the  Popish,  or  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  to  hold,  exercise,  and  enjoy  all  civil 
and  military  offices,  or  places  of  trust  or  profit,  under  his 
majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors,  in  this  kingdom,  and 
to  hold,  to  take  degrees,  or  any  professorship  in,  or  to 
be  masters  in,  or  fellows  of  any  college  to  be  hereafter 
founded  in  this  kingdom,  provided  that  such  college  shall 
be  a  member  of  the  University  of  Dublin,  and  shall  not 
be  founded  exclusively  for  the  education  of  Papists,  or 
persons  professing  the  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  re^ 
iigion,  or  to  hold  any  office  or  place  of  trust  in,  and  to  be 
a  member  of  any  lay  body  corporate,  except  the  College 
of  the  Holy  and  Undivided  Trinity  of  Queen  Elizabeth, 
near  Dublin,  without  taking  and  subscribing  the  oath  of 
allegiance,  supremacy  or  abjuration,  or  making  or  sub- 
scribing the  declaration  required  to  be  taken,  made;  and 
subscribed,  to  enable  any  person  to  hold  and  enjoy  any 
of  such  places,  and  without  receiving  the  sacrament  of 
the  Lord's  Supper  according  to  the  rites  and  ceremonies 
of  the  Church  of  Ireland,  any  law,  statute,  or  by-law  of 
any  corporation  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding;  pro- 
vided that  every  such  person  shall  take  and  subscribe  the 
oath  appointed  by  the  act  passed  in  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  years  of  his  majesty's  reign,  entitled  '  an  act 
to  enable  his  majesty's  subjects,  of  whatever  persuasion, 
to  testify  their  allegiance  to  him;'  and  also  the  oath  and 
declaration  following,  that  is  to  say : — 

" '  I,  A.  B.,  do  hereby  declare  that  I  do  profess  the 
Roman  Catholic  religion. 

"  *  I,  A.  B.,  do  swear  that  I  do  abjure,  condemn,  and 
detest,  as  unchristian  and  impious,  the  principle  that  it  is 
lawful  to  murder,  destroy,  or  any  way  injure  any  person 
whatsoever,  for  or  under  the  pretence  of  being  a  heretic ; 
and  1  do  declare  solemnly,  before  God.  that  I  believe 
that  no  act,  in  itself  unjust,  immoral  or  wicked,  can  ever 


600 


Pinal  Laws 


be  justified  or  excused  by  or  under  preterce  or  color 
that  it  was  done  either  for  the  good  of  the  Church,  or 
in  obedience  to  any  ecclesiastical  power  whatsoever.  I 
also  declare  that  it  is  not  an  article  of  the  Catholic 
faith,  neither  am  I  thereby  required  to  believe  or  profess 
that  the  pope  is  infallible,*  or  that  I  am  bound  to  obey  any 
.order  in  its  own  nature  immoral,  though  the  pope  or  any 
ecclesiastical  power  should  issue  or  direct  such  order; 
but,  on  the  contrary,  I  hold  that  it  would  be  sinful  in  me 
to  pay  any  respect  or  obedience  thereto.  I  further 
declare  that  I  do  not  believe  that  any  sin  whatsoever 
committed  by  me  can  be  forgiven  at  the  mere  w^ill  of  any 
pope,  or  of  any  priest,  or  from  any  person  or  persons 
whatsoever;  but  that  sincere  sorrow  for  past  sins,  a  firm 
and  sincere  resolution  to  avoid  future  guilt  and  to  atone 
to  God,  are  previous  and  indispensable  requisites  to  estab- 
lish a  well-founded  expectation  of  forgiveness ;  and  thai 
any  person  who  receives  absolution  without  these  pre- 
vious requisites,  so  far  from  obtaining  thereby  any  remis- 
sion of  his  sins,  incurs  the  additional  guilt  of  violating  a 
sacrament;  and  I  dosw^earthat  I  will  defend, to  the  utmost 
of  my  power,  the  settlement  and  arrangement  of  property 
in  this  country  as  established  by  the  laws  now  in  b'^ing.  1 
do  hereby  disclaim,  disavow,  and  solemnlv  abjure  any 
intention  to  subvert  the  present  Church  establishipcnt,  for 
the  purpose  of  substituting  a  Catholic  establich'iient  in 
its  stead  ;  and  I  do  solemnly  swear  that  I  will  not  exercise 
any  privilege  to  which  I  am  or  may  become  entitled,  to 
disturb  and  weaken  the  Protestant  religion  3ad  Protestani 
government  of  this  kingdom.    So  help  mc  God.* 

"8.  And  be  it  enacted  that  Papists,  or  rersons  pro- 
fessing the  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  re>^.on  may  be 
capable  of  being  elected  professcn  of  ir,edicme  up(^r. 
the  foundation  of  Sir  Patrick  Dunu,aay  »3  W^  or  r.tatute  !c 
the  contrary  notwithstanding 

•  Papal  Infallibility  not  having  thc»  t<-,ui  3  di^fn^  tftide  of  faith- 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


COl 


**  9.  Provided  always,  and  be  it  enacted,  thai  nothing 
herein  contained  shall  extend,  or  be  construed  to  extend, 
to  enable  any  person  to  sit  or  vote  in  either  house  of  par 
liament,  or  to  hold,  exercise,  or  enjoy  the  office  of  Lord 
Lieutenant,  Lord-Deputy,  or  other  Chief  Governor  or 
Governors  of  this  kingdom,  Lord  High  Chancellor  or 
Keeper,  or  Commissioner  of  the  Great  Seal  of  this  king- 
dom. Lord  High  Treasurer,  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer, 
Chief  Justice  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  or  Common 
Pleas,  Lord  Chief  Baron  of  the  Court  of  Exchequer, 
Justice  of  the  Court  of  King's  Bench  or  Common  Pleas, 
or  Baron  of  the  Court  of  Exchequer,  Judge  of  the  High 
Court  of  Admiralty,  Master  or  Keeper  of  the  Rolls, 
Secretary  of  State,  Keeper  of  the  Privy  Seal,  Vice-Treas- 
urer, Teller  and  Cashier  of  the  Exchequer,  or  Auditor- 
General,  Lieutenant,  or  Governor,  or  Custos  Rotulorum 
of  Counties,  Secretary  to  the  Lord-Lieutenant,  Lord- 
Deputy,  or  other  Chief  Governor  or  Governors  of  this 
kingdom,  Member  of  His  Majesty's  most  Honorable  Privy 
Council,  Prime  Sergeant,  Attorne3'-General,  Solicitor- 
General,  Second  and  Third  Sergeants-at-Law,  or  King's 
Counsel,  Masters  in  Chancery,  Provost,  or  Fellow  of  the 
College  of  the  Holy  and  Undivided  Trinity  of  Queen 
Elizabeth,  near  Dublin,  Postmaster-General,  ^L^ster  and 
Lieutenant-General  of  His  Majesty's  Forces,  Generals  on 
the  Staff,  and  Sheriffs  and  Sub-sheriffs  of  any  county  in 
t+iis  kingdom,  or  any  office  contrary  to  the  rules,  orders 
and  directions  made  and  established  by  the  Lord-Lieu- 
tenant and  Council,  in  pursuance  of  the  act  passed  in  the 
seventeenth  and  eighteenth  years  of  the  reign  of  King 
Charles  H,  entitled  *  an  act  for  the  explaining  of  some 
doubts  arising  upon  an  act  entitled  "  an  act  for  the  better 
execution  of  his  majesty's  gracious  declaration  for  the 
settlement  of  his  kingdom  of  Irekmd,  and  satisfaction  oi 
the  several  interests  of  adventurers,  soldiers,  and  other 
n»s  majesty's  subjects  there,  and  for  making  some  altera- 


602 


Penal  Laws 


tion  of,  and  additions  unto  the  said  act,  for  the  more 
speedy  and  effectual  settlement  of  this  kingdom,"  unless 
he  shall  have  taken,  made,  and  subscribed  the  oaths  and 
declaration,  and  performed  the  several  requisites  which 
by  any  law  heretofore  made,  and  now  of  force,  are 
required  to  enable  any  person  to  sit  or  vote,  or  to  hold, 
exercise,  and  enjoy  the  said  offices  respectively.* 

10.  Provided  also,  and  be  it  enacted,  that  nothing 
in  this  act  contained  shall  enable  any  Papist,  or  person 
professing  the  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  rehgion,  to 
exercise  any  right  of  presentation  to  any  ecclesiastical 
benefice  whatsoever. 

"II.  And  be  it  enacted  that  no  Papist,  or  person  pro- 
fessing the  Popish,  or  Roman  Catholic  religion,  shall  be 
liable  or  subject  to  any  penalty  for  not  attending  divine 
service  on  the  Sabbath-day,  called  Sunda}^,  in  his  or  her 
parish  church. 

"  12.  Provided,  also,  and  be  it  enacted,  that  nothing 
herein  contained  shall  be  construed  to  extend  to  authorize 
any  Popish  priest,  or  reputed  Popish  priest,  to  celebrate 
marriage  between  Protestant  and  Protestant,  or  between 
any  person  who  hath  been,  or  professed  himself  or  her- 
self to  be,  a  Protestant  at  any  time  within  twelve  months 
before  such  celebration  of  marriage,  and  a  Papist,  unless 
such  Protestant  and  Papist  should  have  been  first  married 
by  a  clergyman  of  the  Protestant  religion ;  and  that  every 
Popish  priest,  or  reputed  Popish  priest,  who  shall  cele- 
brate any  marriage  between  two  Protestants,  or  between 
any  such  Protestant  or  Papist,  unless  such  Protestant  and 
Papist  shall  have  been  first  married  by  a  clergyman  of 
the  Protestant  religion,  shall  forfeit  the  sum  of  ;^5oo  to 
his  majesty,  upon  conviction  thereof.* 

13.  And  whereas  it  may  be  expedient,  in  case  his 

•  In  England  the  celebration  of  divine  service  in  Catholic  chapels  is  pro- 
tected by  an  act  of  parliament  C31  George  III,  c.  32 )  imposing  a  penalty  of  £20 
upon  any  jerson  disturbing  it.    No  such  protection  exists  in  Ireland. 


the  Rc'igii  of  George  III. 


603 


majesty,  his  heirs  and  successors  shall  be  pleased  to 
alter  the  statutes  of  the  College  of  the  Holy  and  Undi- 
vided Trinity,  near  Dublin,  and  of  the  University  of 
Dublin,  as  to  enable  persons  professing  the  Roman  Cath- 
olic religion  to  enter  into,  or  take  degrees  in  the  said 
university,  to  remove  any  obstacle  which  now  exists  by 
statute  law,  be  it  enacted  : 

That  from,  and  after  the  first  day  of  June,  1793,  it 
shall  not  be  necessary  for  any  person,  upon  taking  any 
of  the  degrees  usually  conferred  by  the  said  university, 
to  make  or  subscribe  any  declaration,  or  to  take  any 
oath  save  the  oath  of  allegiance  and  abjuration,  any  law 
or  statute  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding. 

"  14.  Provided  always,  that  no  Papist  or  Roman 
Catholic,  or  person  professing  the  Roman  Catholic,  or 
Popish  religion,  shall  take  any  benefit  by  or  under  this 
act,  unless  he  shall  have  first  taken  and  subscribed  the 
oath  and  declaration  in  this  act  contained  and  set  forth, 
and  also  the  said  oath  appointed  by  the  said  act,  passed 
in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  years  of  his  majesty's 
reign,  entitled  *  an  act  to  enable  his  majesty's  subjects, 
of  whatever  persuasion,  to  testify  their  allegiance  to 
him,'  in  some  one  of  his  majesty's  Four  Courts  of  Dublin, 
or  at  the  General  Sessions  of  the  Peace,  or  at  any  adjourn- 
ment thereof,  to  be  holden  for  the  county,  city  or  borough, 
wherein  such  Papist  or  Roman  Catholic,  or  person  pro- 
fessing the  Roman  Catholic,  or  Popish  rehgion,  doth 
inhabit  or  dwell,  or  before  the  going  judge  or  judges  of 
assize,  in  the  county  wherein  such  Papist  or  Roman 
Catholic,  or  person  professing  the  lloman  Catholic,  or 
J^opish,  religion,  doth  inhabit  and  dwell,  in  open  court. 

"15.  Provided  always,  and  be  it  enacted,  that  the 
names  of  such  persons  as  so  shall  take  and  subscribe 
the  said  oaths  and  declarations,  with  their  titles  and 
additions,  shall  be  entered  upon  the  rolls  for  that  purpose, 
to  be  appointed  by  said  respective  courts;  and  that 


C04 


Penal  Laws 


the  said  rolls,  once  in  every  year,  shall  be  transmitted  to, 
and  deposited  in  the  rolls  office,  in  this  kingdom,  to 
remain  amongst  the  records  thereof;  and  the  masteis 
or  keepers  of  the  rolls  in  this  kingdom,  or  their  lawful 
deputy  or  deputies,  are  hereby  empowered  and  required 
to  give  and  deliver  to  such  person  or  persons,  so  taking 
and  subscribing  the  said  oaths  and  declarations,  a  certifi- 
cate or  certificates  of  such  person  or  persons  having 
taken  and  subscribed  the  said  oaths  and  declarations, 
for  each  of  which  certificate  the  sum  of  one  shilling,  and 
no  more,  shall  be  paid.* 

"  i6.  And  be  it  further  provided  and  enacted  that, 
from  and  after  the  first  day  of  April,  1793,  no  freeholder, 
burgess,  freeman,  or  inhabitant  of  this  kingdom,  being 
a  Papist  or  Roman  Catholic,  or  person  professing  the 
Roman  Catholic,  or  Popish  religion,  shall  at  any  time  be 
capable  of  giving  his  vote  for  the  electing  of  any  knight 
or  knights  of  any  shire  or  county  within  this  kingdom, 
or  citizen  or  burgess  to  serve  in  any  parliament,  until 
he  shall  have  first  produced  and  shown  to  the  high  sheriff 
of  the  said  county,  or  his  deputy  or  deputies,  at  any  elec- 
tion of  a  knight  or  knights  of  the  said  shire,  and  to  the 
respective  chief  officer  or  officers  of  any  city,  borough 
or  town  corporate  to  whom  the  return  ol  any  citizen  or 
burgess  to  serve  in  parliament,  such  certificate  of  his 
having  taken  and  subscribed  the  said  oaths  and  declara. 
tion,  either  from  the  rolls  of  office,  or  from  the  proper 
officer  of  the  court  in  which  the  said  oath's  and  declara- 
tion shall  be  taken  and  subscribed  ;  and  such  person  being 
a  freeholder,  freeman,  burgess,  or  inhabitant,  producing 
and  showing  such  certificate,  shall  be  then  permitted  to 
vote  as  amply  and  fully  as  any  Protestant  freeholder,  free- 
man, burgess,  or  inhabitant  of  such  county,  city,  borough, 
or  town  corporate,  but  not  otherwise."* 

•  As  admission  into  the  army  and  navy,  and  the  privilege  to  hold  revenue 
offices  in  Great  Britain,  are  the  only  concessions  that  have  been  made  to  the 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


605 


The  general  committee,  in  testimony  of  their  gi  atitude 
to  the  king  for  this  most  important  concession,  presented 
the  following  address  to  the  lord-lieutenant,  to  be  by  him 
transmitted  to  his  majesty  : — 

■ "  Most  Gracious  Sovereign  : 

"  We,  your  majesty's  most  dutiful  and  lo3'al  subjects, 
the  Catholics  of  Ireland,  animated  with  sentiments  of 
the  most  lively  gratitude,  beg  leave  to  approach  your 
majesty  with  our  sincere  and  heartfelt  thanks  for  tne  sub- 
stantial benefits  which,  through*your  majesty's  gracious 
recommendations,  we  have  received  from  the  wisdom  and 
liberality  of  parliament. 

"  Impressed  with  a  deep  sense  of  3'our  majesty's 
goodness,  we  reflect  that,  in  consequence  of  this  .last 
and  signal  instance  of  your  royal  favor,  the  disabilities 
under  which  we  and  our  ancestors  so  long  labored,  have, 

Catholics  since  1793,  it  may  be  as  well  to  enumerate  here,  as  in  any  other 
place,  the  various  disabilities  to  which  they  are  still  liable  :  — 

Education. — They  cannot  teach  school,  unless  they  take  the  oaths  of  13  and 
14  George  III,  c.  35.  They  cannot  take  Protestant  scholars,  or  be  ushers  to 
Protestant  schoolmasters,  by  32  George  III,  c.  20.  , 

Guardianship. — They  cannot  be  guardians,  unless  they  take  the  oaths  of  13 
and  14  George  III,  c,  35.  If  ecclesiastics,  they  cannot,  under  any  circumstance, 
be  guardians;  nor  can  any  Catholic  be  guardian  to  a  child  of  a  Protestant,  l>y  30 
George  III,  c.  29. 

Marriage. — If  a  Catholic  clergyman  marries  a  Protestant  and  a  Catholic, 
unless  the  marriage  has  been  previously  solemnized  by  a  Protestant  clergyman, 
the  marriage  is  null  and  void,  and  he  is  liable  to  a  penalty  of  £,^00,  by  33 
George  III,  c.  21,  $  12. 

Self-defence.-«-No  Catholic  can  Iceep  arms  unless  he  possesses  a  freehold 
estate  of  ;^io  per  annum,  or  a  personal  estate  of  /"300.  If  so  qualified,  he  must 
further  qualify  himself  by  taking  the  oaths  of  13  and  14  George  III,  c.  35  (unless 
lie  has  a  freehold  estate  of  /"too  per  annum,  or  a  personal  estate  of  /"i.ooo,  by  33 
George  III,  c.  21). 

Exercise  of  Religion.— The  Catholic  clergy  must  take  the  oaths  of  13  and 
14  George  III,  c.  35,  and  register  their  place  of  abode,  age  and  parish.  No 
chapei  can  have  a  steeple  or  l)ell,  and  no  rites  or  ceremonies  of  the  religion  or 
habits  of  their  order  are  permitted,  except  within  their  several  places  of  worship, 
or  in  private  houses,  by  21  and  22  George  III,  c.  24,  $  6. 

Property. — The  penal  laws  are  in  full  force  in  respect  to  landed  property 


COG 


Penal  Laius 


in  a  considerable  degree,  been  removed,  the  constitutional 
energy  of  three-fourths  of  your  loyal  subjects  restored 
to  their  country,  and  themselves  enabled  to  testify,  in  a 
manner  more  useful  to  your  majesty's  service,  their 
devoted  attachment  to  your  person,  family  and  govern- 
ment. Restored,  as  we  now  are,  to  such  valuable 
privileges,  it  shall  be  our  duty,  as  it  is  our  inclination,  t«. 
unite  in  support  of  our  excellent  constitution,  as 
established  in  kmg,  lords,  and  commons, — a  constitution 
revered  by  us  for  its  excellence,  even  when  secluded 
from  its  blessings,  and  from  which  every  advantage  we 
derive  becomes  a  new  tie  of  fidelity  and  attachment. 

Permit  us,  most  gracious  sovereign,  to  express  our 
unfeigned  satisfaction  that,  to  a  monarch  endeared  to  us 
by  so  many  proofs  of  clemency,  belongs  the  glorious 
distinction  of  bein^:  the  first  to  beo:in  that  work  of 
emancipation,  in  accomplishment  of  which  we  humbly 

against  all  Catholics,  and  all  Protestant  purchasers  from  Catholics,  when  the 
Catholic  proprietor  has  omitted  to  take  the  qualifying  oaths  of  13  and  14  GeoTge 
III,  c— . 

'*  The  Catholic  guilty  of  such  omission  not  merely  risks  the  total  loss  of  his 
landed  property^  but  is  immersed  in  fomenting  litigation.  His  lands  and 
tenements,  and  all  collateral  securities  made  and  entered  into  for  covering 
or  protecting  them,  become  discoverable,  and  may  be  sued  for  and  recovered 
from  him  by  any  Protestant  discoverer.  The  discoverer,  so  vested  wiih  this 
property,  is  enabled  to  find  it  out  by  every  mode  of  inquisition,  and  to  sue  foi 
it  with  every  kind  of  privilege  (8  Anne,  c  3,      27  and  30). 

"Not  only  are  the  courts  of  law  open  to  him,  but  he  may  enter  [and  this  is 
the  usual  method]  into  either  of  the  courts  of  equity.  He  may  file  his  bills  against 
those  whom  he  suspects  to  be  possessed  of  this  forbidden  property,  against 
those  whom  he  suspects  to  be  their  trustees,  and  against  those  whom  he  suspects 
to  be  privy  to  such  ownership,  and  oblige  them,  under  the  guilt  of  penal t'es  for 
perjury,  to  discover,  upon  oath,  the  exact  nature  and  just  value  of  their  estates 
and  trusts,  in  all  particulars  necessary  to  affect  their  forfeiture.  In  such  suits 
the  informer  is  not  liable  to  the  delays  which  the  ordinary  procedure  of  tl:ose 
courlF  throws  in  the  way  of  the  most  equitable  claimant,  nor  has  the  Catholic 
tlie  indulgence  allowed  to  the  most  fraudulent  defendant:  that  of  pica  and  demur, 
rer.  He  is  obliged  to  answer  the  whole  directly,  upon  his  oath,  and  the  old 
rule  of  'extending  benefit  and  restraining  penalty  is,  by  this  law,  struck  out  ot 
the  ancient  jurispnidence.'  "  ("Statement  of  the  Penal  Laws,"  p.  307.) 

Franchises. — No  Catholic  can  hold  any  office  enumerated  in  $  9  of  the 


///  tJie  Reign  of  George  III. 


GOT 


hope  your  majesty  will  enjoy  the  gratification  of  seeing 
your  whole  people  united  in  the  bonds  of  equal  laws  and 
equal  liberty. 

"  May  your  majesty  long  continue  to  reign  in  the 
hearts  of  your  faithful  subjects,  dispensing,  as  common 
father  to  all  your  people,  the  inestimable  blessings  of 
freedom,  peace  and  union." 

Although  this  act  declared  that  Catholics  might  hold 
any  military  office  or  employment,  as  its  powers  could 
not  extend  out  of  Ireland,  and  as  all  Irish  Catholic 
soldiers,  sailors  and  officers  \yere  uniformly  employed 
on  services  out  of  Ireland,  it  was  represented  to  the 
govemmxcnt  that,  in  order  to  give  it  any  useful  effect 
in  this  respect,  the  English  act  of  i  George  I,  which 
prohibits  Catholics  from  filling  any  military  situation, 
should  be  repealed.  In  answer  to  their  application,  the 
Catholics  were  informed  by  Lord  Hobart  that  such  a 
measure  would  be  immediately  adopted,  and  the  letter 
of  the  secretary  of  state  was  shown  to  them,  containing 
the-  promise  of  the  English  government.    In  the  House 

act  here  inserted,  of  33  George  III,  c.  21.  Catholics  cannot  sit  in  parliament. 
They  cannot  vote  at  elections  for  members,  without  taking  the  oaths  of  13 
and  14  George  III,  c.  35,  and  of  33  George  III,  c.  21.  They  cannot  vote  at 
▼estries,  where  the  question  relates  to  building  or  repairing  churches,  the  salary 
of  the  clerk,  or  the  election  of  churchvrarden,  by  ^$  4-33  George  III,  c.  21. 
They  cannot  be  barristers,  attorneys  or  professors  of  medicine  on  Sir  P.  Dunn's 
foundation,  without  taking  the  oaths  of  13  and  14  George  III,  c.  35,  and  of  33 
Gorge  III,  c,  21. 

Catholic  Soldiers. — By  the  Mutiny  Act,  if  they  refuse  to  frequent  the 
Church  of  England  worship,  when  ordered  to  do  so  by  their  commanding 
officer,  shall,  for  the  first  offence,  forfeit  twelvepence,  and  for  the  second  not 
only  forfeit  twelvepence,  but  be  laid  in  irons  for  twelve  hours  ;  and  by  the 
2d  section,  act  5,  of  the  Articles  of  War,  the  punishment  extends  even  to  that  of 
death. 

No  part  scarcely,  in  fact,  of  the  penal  code  is  repealed,  but  all  of  it  is  now 
the  law  of  the  land,  and  in  full  force  against  those  Catholics  who  have  not 
qualified  themselves  for  relief  from  its  violence,  by  taking  the  oaths  of  13  and 
14  George  III,  c  35,  and  of  33  George  III,  c.  21. 


608 


Penal  Laws 


of  Lords,  when,  upon  the  debate  of  tliis  act,  Lord 
Farnham  proposed  an  amendment  to  the  clause  rehiting 
to  the  mihtary  officers,  by  rendering  its  operation  con- 
ditional, until  England  should  pass  a  similar  law,  the 
Chancellor,  Lord  Clare,  opposed  it:  "  For,"  said  he,  it 
could  not  be  supposed  that  his  majesty  would  appoint  a 
man  to  such  a  post  until  the  laws  of  the  empire  should 
qualify  him  to  act  in  every  part  of  it.  It  was  more  than 
probable  a  similar  law  to  this  would  be  adopted  in 
England  before  the  lapse  of  two  months,  and  on  this 
ground  the  amendment  would  be  wholly  unnecessary."  * 
Fourteen  years,  however,  were  allowed  to  pass  by 
without  any  attempt  being  made  to  pass  such  a  law  in 
England;  and  when  the  cabinet,  in  1807,  sought  to 
rescue  the  plighted  faith  of  their  predecessors  from 
well-merited  reproach,  they  were  accused  of  an  attempt 
to  subvert  the  Established  Church,  and  were  driven  from 
the  councils  of  his  majesty. 

In  the  course  of  this  year  a  most  unequivocal  proof 
was  given  to  the  liberal  sentiments  which  prevailed 
throughout  among  the  Protestants  of  the  north  •  of 
Ireland,  in  regard  to  their  Catholic  fellow-countrymen. 
At  the  meeting  of  the  convention  of  delegates,  which 
was  held,  in  February,  at  Dungannon,  and  in  which 
the  counties  of  Antrim,  Down,  Londonderry,  Tyrone, 
Donegal  and  Monaghan,  were  fully  represented,  they 
passed  resolutions  in  favor  of  the  absolute  necessity  of  a 
reform  in  parliament,  including  the  unqualified  admission 
of  Catholics.  The  Synod  of  Ulster  also  (a  body  consist- 
ing of  the  whole  dissenting  clergy  of  the  North,  and  the 
Presbytery  of  Dublin,  together  with  a  lay  delegate  from 
each  parish)  presented  an  address  to  the  lord-lieute-nant, 
in  which  they  expressed  their  satisfaction  at  the  admission 
of  the  Catholics  to  the  privileges  of  the  constitution. 


•  "Plowden's  Ilist.  of  Br.  Empire,  during  1792  and  1739." 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III,  609 


These  occurrences  are  of  vast  importance  m  forming  a 
correct  view  of  the  opinion  of  the  Irish  Protestants  upon 
this  question,  because  the  Presbyterians  being-  in  numbers 
fully  equal  to  the  Protestants  of  the  Church  of  England, 
it  leaves  but  a  small  number  of  the  whole  people  adverse 
to  the  Catholic  claims,  even  if  all  these  Protestants  were, 
as  they  certainly  are  not,  hostile  to  emancipation. 

During  this  session  another  subject  occupied  the  seri- 
ous attention  of  the  upper  house  of  parliament.  Dis- 
turbances had  broken  out,  and  outrages  were  committed 
in  the  county  of  Louth,  and  the  neighboring  counties  of 
Meath,  Cavan  and  Monaghan,  by  persons  of  the  very  low- 
est rank  in  life,  associated  under  the  name  of  Defenders. 
This  body  had  its  origin  in  religious  persecution,  and 
was  an  almost  inevitable  consequence  of  the  system  ac- 
cording to  which  Ulster  had  been  colonized  and  settled, 
and  Ireland  ruled  since  the  Reformation.  In  that  pro- 
vince English  and  Scotch  planters  had  been  established 
on  the  forfeited  lands  of  the  native  Catholics. 

These  last  were,  for  the  most  part,  obliged  to  retire  to 
the  bogs  and  mountains ;  but,  even  there,  they  were  not 
permitted  to  lose  the  remembrance  of  their  forefathers, 
their  power  and  their  opulence,  in  the  tranquil  enjoyment 
of  security  and  content. 

The  bogs  and  mountains  afforded  them  no  refuge 
against  the  acts  of  uniformity  and  supremacy,  or  the  ac- 
cumulating oppressions  ot  the  Popery  laws.  Nor  were 
^he  wretched  inhabitants  exempted  by  their  defenceless 
condition  from  the  hatred,  contempt  and  persecution  of 
their  privileged  and  arrogant  neighbors.  Hence  arose 
a  mutual  rancorous  animosity  between  the  new  settlers 
and  natives,  or,  in  other  words,  between  the  Protestants 
and  Catholics,  transmitted  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion, until  at  last  it  became  more  violent  and  intolerant 
than  in  any  other  part  of  Ireland. 

The  Volunteers,  by  the  benign  influence  of  their  institu- 


c:o 


PiUUt  Laws 


tion,  had,  for  the  first  time,  considerably  abated  this  spirit, 
and  by  their  successful  activity,  as  military  men,  in  keep- 
ing the  peace,  had  prevented  its  receiving  fresh  provo- 
cation by  outrage  and  insult.  But  in  proportion  as  this 
body  declined  or  was  discouraged,  prejudices  and  hatred 
revived,  especially  in  districts  remote  from  the  princi- 
pal Presbyterian  towns,  where  the  growing  liberality  ol 
the  most  enlightened  dissenters  could  scarcely  operate. 
These  prejudices  which,  chiefly  prevailing  in  the  county 
of  Armagh,*  extended,  more  or  less,  into  the  adjoining 
districts  of  the  counties  of  Down  and  Tyrone,  began  to 
break  out  in  the  year  1791.  About  that  period  several 
associations  among  the  lower  order  of  the  Protestants 
were  formed,  under  the  appellation  of  Peep-o'-Da}^  Boys, 
whose  object  v/as  to  scour  the  Catholic  districts  about 
the  break  of  da)^  and  strip  the  inhabitants  of  fire- 
arms, alleging  that  they  were  warranted  in  so  doing  by 
the  Popery  laws,  which  had,  indeed,  for  a  long  period, 
forbidden  to  the  members  of  that  communion  the  use 
of  arms,  even  for  self-defence. 

*  Lord  Viscount  Gosford's  address  to  the  magistrates  of  the  county  of  Armagh: 
Gentlemen  : — Having  requested  your  attendance  here  this  day,  it  becomes  my 
duty  to  state  the  grounds  upon  which  I  thought  it  advisable  to  propose  this 
meeting,  and,  at  the  sam.e  time,  to  submit  to  your  consideration  a  plan  which 
occurs  to  me  as  most  likely  to  check  the  enormities  that  have  already  brought 
disgrace  upon  this  country,  and  may  soon  reduce  it  into  deep  distress.  It  is  no 
secret  that  a  persecution,  accompanied  with  all  the  circumstances  of  ferocious 
cruelty  which  have,  in  all  ages,  distinguished  that  dreadful  calamity,  is  now 
raging  in  this  county.  Neither  age  nor  sex,  nor  even  acknowledged  innocence 
as  to  any  guilt  in  the  late  disturbances,  is  sufficient  to  excite  mercy,  much  less 
to  afford  protection. 

*'  The  only  crime  which  the  wretched  objects  of  this  ruthless  persecution  are 
charged  with,  is  a  crime,  indeed,  of  easy  proof:  it  is  simply  profession  of 
the  Roman  Catholic  faiih,  or  an  intimate  connection  with  a  person  professing 
that  faiih.  A  lawless  banditti  have  constituted  themselves  judges  of  this  new 
species  of  delinquency,  and  the  sentence  they  have  denounced  is  equally  con- 
cise and  terrible.  It  is  nothing  less  than  a  confiscation  of  all  property,  and 
an  immediate  banishment.  It  would  be  extremely  painful,  and  surely  unneces- 
sary, to  detail  the  horrors  that  attend  the  execution  of  so  rude  and  tremendous 
a  proscription, — a  proscription  that  certainly  exceeds,  in  the  comparative  numbt-r 


hi  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


611 


The  Catholics,  thus  exposed  and  attacked,  entered  into 
a  counter  association,  called  Defenders,  which  derived  its 
name  from  the  necessity  of  their  situation,  and  its  excuse 
from  the  difficulty,  or,  as  they  stated,  the  impossibility  of 
obtaining  justice  against  their  aggressors.  This  associa- 
tion, at  first  local,  and  confined,  as  much  as  mutual  hatred 
would  allow,  to  actual  self-defence,  began,  in  1792,  to 
spread  through  other  parts  of  the  kingdom,  and  not  a 
little  to  connect  itself  with  more  general  politics. 

In  proportion  as  this  association  extended  itself  into 
districts  where  no  Protestants  of  inferior  rank  of  life  were 
to  be  found,  and  therefore  no  outrages  like  those  com- 
mitted by  the  Peep-o'-Day  Boys  to  be  apprehended,  it 
gradual!}'  lost  its  characteristic  of  being  a  religious  feud, 
and  became,  in  fact,  an  association  of  the  very  worst  char- 
acters, particularly  for  procuring  a  redress  of  the  griev- 
ances of  the  very  humbler  classes.  Even  in  the  counties 
where  it  originated,  it  ceased  to  be  actuated  by  religious 
animosity  before  the  end  of  1792,  in  consequence  of 
the  exertions  of  the  earlv  United  Irishmen,  whose  chief 

of  those  it  consigns  to  ruin  and  misery,  every  example  that  ancient  and  modern 
history  can  supply  :  for,  where  have  we  heard,  or  in  what  story  of  human  cruel- 
ties have  we  read  of  more  than  half  the  inhabitants  of  a  populous  country 
deprived  at  one  blow  of  the  means,  as  well  as  the  fruits  of  their  industry,  and 
driven,  in  the  midst  of  an  inclement  season,  to  seek  a  shelter  for  themselves 
and  their  helpless  families  where  chance  may  guide  them  ?  This  is  no  ex- 
aggerated picture  of  the  horrid  scenes  now  acting  in  this  country,  yet  surely  it 
is  sufficient  to  awaken  sentiments  of  indignation  and  compassion  in  the  coldest 
bosoms.  Those  horrors  are  now  acting  with  impunity.  The  spirit  of  impartial 
justice  (without  which  law  is  nothing  better  than  an  instrument  of  tyranny )  has 
for  a  time  disappeared  in  this  country,  and  the  supineness  of  the  magistracy, 
of  Armagh  is  become  a  common  topic  of  conversation  in  every  corner  of  the 
kingdom. 

••It  is  said,  in  reply,  the  Catholics  are  dangerous.  They  may  be  so — they 
may  be  dangerous  from  their  numbers,  and  still  more  dangerous  from  the  un- 
bounded views  they  hdve  been  encouraged  to  enjertain  ;  but  I  would  venture  to 
assert,  without  fear  of  contradiction,  that  these  proceedings  are  not  moi  e  contrary 
to  humanity  than  they  are  to  sound  policy.  It  is  to  be  lamented  that  no  civil 
magistrate  happened  to  be  [)resent  with  the  military  detachment  on  the  niglit  of 
the  21st  instant;  but  I  trust  the  suddenness  of  the  occasion,  the  unexpected 


612 


Penal  Laws 


endeavors  were  always  directed  to  reconcile  the  Protes- 
tants and  Catholics. 

These  disturbances  having  attracted  the  attention  ol 
the  House  of  Lords  early  in  1793,  a  secret  committee  was 
appointed  to  inquire  into  these  causes,  to  endeavor  to 
discover  their  promoters,  and  to  prevent  their  extension. 

In  their  report  they  exculpate  the  Catholics  as  a  body 
from  all  criminalit)^  with  respect  to  their  proceedmgs. 
They  say  that  nothing  appeared  before  them  which 
could  lead  them  to  oelieve  that  the  body  of  the  Roman 
Catholics  in  this  kingdom  were  concerned  in  promoting  or 
countenancing  such  disturbances;"  and  then  they  even 
acquit  the  lower  order  of  Catholics  of  being  to  blame, 
by  saying  that,  if  all  the  magistrates  in  the  disturbed 
counties  had  followed  the  spirited  example  of  the  few 
who,  much  to  their  honor,  exerted  themselves  with 
vigor  and  courage  to  support  the  laws,  the  committee 
are  persuaded  that  these  disturbances  might  have  been 
suppressed ;  but,  instead  of  doing  so,  they  remained 
inactive." 

and  instantaneous  aggression  on  the  part  of  the  delinquents,  \riil  be  universally 
admitted  as  a  full  vindication  of  the  conduct  of  the  officer,  and  the  party  acting 
under  his  command.  Gentlemen,  I  have  the  honor  to  hold  a  situation  in  this 
country  which  calls  upon  me  to  deliver  my  sentiments,  and  I  do  it  without  fear 
and  without  disguise.  I  am  as  true  a  Protestant  as  any  gentleman  in  this 
room  ;  I  inherit  a  property  which  my  family  claimed  under  a  Protestant  title,  and, 
with  the  blessing  of  God,  I  will  maintain  that  title  to  the  utmost  of  my  power.  I 
will  never  consent  to  make  a  sacrifice  of  Protestant  ascendancy  to  Catholic 
claims,  with  whatever  menace  they  may  be  urged,  or  however  speciously  or 
invidiously  supported.  Conscious  of  my  sincerity  in  this  public  declaration, 
which  I  do  not  make  unadvisedly,  but  as  the  result  of  mature  deliberation,  I 
defy  fhe  paltry  insinuations  that  malice  or  party  spirit  may  suggest. 

"  I  know  my  own  heart,  and  I  would  despise  myself  if,  under  intimidation,  I 
could  close  my  eyes  against  such  scenes  as  present  themselves  on  every  side> 
01  my  ears  against  the  complaints  of  a  persecuted  people. 

"  I  should  be  guilty  of  an  unpardonable  injustice  to  the  feelings  of  gentlemtn 
here  present,  were  I  to  say  more  on  this  subject.  I  have  now  acquitted  my- 
self to  my  conscience  and  my  country,  and  take  the  liberty  of  proposing  the 
following  resolutions: — 

1st.  That  it  appears  to  this  meeting  thnt  the  county  of  Armagh  is  at  thif 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


G13 


In  further  corroboration  of  the  innocence  of  tne  Cath- 
olics, there  is  the  following-  declaration  of  one  of  the 
members  of  the  committee,  in  the  debate  on  the  Catholic 
bill.  Lord  Portarlington  said  that,  **  if  he  was  not  fully 
convinced  that  the  Catholic  body  had  no  connection 
whatever  in  the  disturbances  created  by  some  of  their 
communion  in  the  North,  he  should  never  give  this  bill 
his  support." 

The  Catholic  clergy,  w^ho  had  been  uniformly  ready 
to  promote  tranquillity,  and  to  inculcate  the  obligation 
of  a  strict  submission  to  the  laws,  were  not  backward; 
on  this  occasion,  in  assisti.  ig  government  to  suppress  the 
outrages  of  the  Defenders. 

Dr.  Troy,  Dr.  O'Reilly,  Dr.  Bray,  Dr.  Bellew  and 
Dr.  Cruise,  all  of  them  titular  bishops,  happening-  to  be 
in  Dublin  when  the  business  was  first  taken  up  to  the 
House  of  Lords,  published  the  following  admonition'  to 
those  of  their  communion,  and  directed  the  priests  of 
their  dioceses  to  read  it  in  their  respective  chapels : — 

moment  in  a  state  of  uncommon  disorder  ;  that  the  Roman  Catholic  inhabitants 
are  grievously  oppressed  by  lawless  persons  unknown,  who  attack  and  plunder 
their  houses  by  night,  and  threaten  them  with  instant  destruction,  unless  they 
immediately  abandon  their  lands  and  habitations. 

"2d.  That  a  committee  of  magistrates  be  appointed  to  sit  on  Tuesdays  and 
Saturdays  in  the  chapter-room,  in  the  town  of  Armagh,  to  receive  information 
against  all  persons  of  whatever  description,  who  disturb  the  peace  of  this 
county. 

"  3d.  That  the  instruction  of  the  whole  body  of  magistrates  to  their  committee 
sha^l  be  to  use  every  legal  means  within  their  power  to  stop  the  progress  of 
the  persecution  now  carried  on  by  an  ungovernable  mob  against  the  Roman 
Catholic  inhabitants  of  this  county. 

"4th.  That  said  committee,  or  any  three  of  them,  be  empwwered  to  expend 
any  sum  or  sums  of  money,  for  information  or  secret  service,  out  of  the  fum 
f  ubicribed  by  the  gentlemen  of  this  county. 

"  5th.  That  a  meeting  of  the  whole  body  of  the  magistracy  be  held  every  second 
Monday,  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Charles  McReynolds,  in  the  town  of  Armagh,  to 
hear  the  report  of  the  committee,  and  to  give  such  further  instructions  as  the 
exigency  of  the  case  may  require. 

"  6*h.  That  offenders  of  every  description  in  the  present  disturbances  shall  be 
prosecuted  out  of  the  fund  subscribed  by  the  gentlemen  of  this  county." 


611 


Penal  Laws 


Dublin,  January  25th,  T793 

**  Dear  Christians  :— 

It  has  been  our  constant  practice,  as  it  is  our  indis- 
pensable duty,  to  exhort  you  to  manifest,  on  all  occasions, 
that  unshaken  loyalty  to  his  majesty  and  obedience  to 
the  laws  which  the  principles  of  our  holy  religion  inspire 
and  command.  This  loyalty  and  obedience  have  ever 
peculiarly  distinguished  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland. 
We  do  not  conceive  a  doubt  of  their  being  actuated  at 
present  by  the  same  sentiments,  but  thinlc  it  necessary 
to  observe  that  a  most  lively  gratitude  to  our  beloved 
sovereign  should  render  their  loyalty  and  love  of  order, 
if  possible,  more  conspicuous.  Our  gracious  king,  the 
common  father  of  all  his  people,  has,  with  peculiar  energy, 
recommended  his  faithful  Roman  Catholic  subjects  of  this 
kingdom  to  the  wisdom  and  liberalit}^  of  our  enlightened 
parliament.  How  can  we,  dear  Christians,  express  our 
heartfelt  acknowledgments  for  this  signal  and  unprece- 
dented instance  of  royal  benevolence  and  condescension  ? 
Words  are  insufficient ;  but  your  continued  and  peaceable 
conduct  will  more  effectually  proclaim  them,  and  in  a  man- 
ner equally,  if  not  more,  satisfactory  and  pleasing  to  his 
majesty  and  his  parliament.  Avoid,  then,  we  conjure  you, 
dearest  brethren,  every  appearance  of  riot;  attend  to 
your  industrious  pursuits  for  the  support  and  comfort  of 
your  families;  fly  from  idle  assemblies;  abstain  from  the 
intemperate  use  of  spirituous  and  intoxicating  liquors; 
practise  the  duties  of  our  holy  religion.  This  conduct,  so 
pleasing  to  heaven,  will  also  prove  the  most  powerful 
recommendation  of  your  present  clamis  to  our  amiable 
sovereign,  to  both  houses  of  parliament,  to  the  magis- 
trates, and  to  all  our  well-meaning  fellow-subjects  of 
every  description.  None  but  the  evil-minded  can  rejoice 
in  3^our  being  concerned  in  any  disturbance. 

*'  We  cannot  but  declare  our  utmost  and  con:.icicn- 


0 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III  Glo 

tious  detestation  and  abhorrence  of  the  enormities  lately 
committed  by  seditious  and  misguided  wretches  of  every 
religious  denomination  in  some  counties  ot  this  king- 
dom ;  they  are  enemies  of  God  and  man,  the  outcasts  of 
society,  and  a  disgrace  to  Christianity.  We  consider  the 
Roman  Catholics  amongst  them  unworthy  the  appella- 
tion, whether  acting  from  themselves,  or  seduced  to  out 
rage  by  arts  of  designing  enemies  to  us  and  to  nationa. 
prosperity,  intimately  connected  with  our  emancipation. 

Offer  your  prayers,  dearest  brethren,  to  the  Father  of 
mercy,  that  He  may  inspire  these  deluded  people  with 
sentiments  becoming  Christians  and  good  subjects ;  sup- 
plicate the  Almighty  Ruler  and  Disposer  of  em.pires,  by 
whom  kings  rule,  and  legislators  determine  what  is  just,  to 
direct  his  majesty's  councils,  and  forward  his  benevolent 
intentions  to  unite  all  his  Irish  subjects  in  bonds  of  com- 
mon interest,  and  common  endeavors  for  the  preservation 
of  peace  and  good  order,  and  for  every  purpose  tending 
to  increase  and  secure  national  prosperity. 

"  Beseech  the  throne  of  mercy,  also,  to  assist  both 
houses  of  parliament  in  their  important  deliberations, 
that  they  may  be  distinguished  by  consummate  wisdom 
and  liberality,  for  the  advantage  of  the  kingdom,  and 
the  relief  and  happiness  of  his  majesty's  subjects. 

Under  the  pleasing  expectations  of  your  cheerful 
compliance  with  these  our  earnest  solicitations,  we  most 
sincerely  wish  you  every  blessing  in  this  life,  and  ever- 
lasting happiness  in  the  next,  through  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  Amen." 

In  the  summer  of  1794,  Mr.  Pitt  formed  his  memorable 
coalition  with  the  Rockingham  party  ;  and  though  the 
ground  of  this  transaction  was  a  concurrence  of  opinion 
concerning  the  war  with  France,  "'if  the  general  man- 
agement and  superintendence  of  Ireland  had  x\o\.  been 
offered  to  the  Duke  of  Portland,  that  coalition  could 


CIG 


Penal  Laws 


not  have  taken  place.  The  sentiments  he  had  enter- 
tained, and  the  language  he  had  held  so  publicly  for 
years  back  on  the  subject,  rendered  the  superintendence 
of  Irish  affairs  a  point  that  could  not  bo  dispensed  with 
by  him." 

It  having  thus  become  a  point  that  could  not  be 
dispensed  with  by  the  Duke  of  Portland,  to  grant  the 
Catholics  of  Ireland  complete  emancipation,  the  first 
measure  of  his  grace,  immediately  upon  the  coalition 
being  arranged,  was  to  solicit  Lord  Fitzwilliam  to 
accept  of  his  office  of  lord-lieutenant,  and  to  propose 
to  him  to  carry  this  measure  instantly  into  effect,  f 
This  measure  was  decided  upon  by  the  cabinet  on  the 
day  the  Duke  of  Portland  kissed  hands,  after  frequent 
consultations  between  Mr.  Pitt,  the  Duke  of  Portland, 
Lord  Fitzwilliam,  Mr.  Grattan  and  Mr.  Ponsonby.  % 

Lord  Fitzwilliam,  having  acceded  to  the  pressing 
solicitations  of  the  Duke  of  Portland  to  undertake  to 
carry  this  favorite  and  indispensable  measure  into  effect, 
landed  in  Dublin  on  the  2d  January.  He  had  consented 
not  to  bring  the  question  forward  on  the  part  of  gov- 
ernment, but  rather  to  endeavor  to  keep  it  back  until  a 
period  of  more  general  tranquillity ;  "  but  it  had  been  re- 
solved by  the  cabinet  that  if  the  Catholics  should  appear 
determined  to  stir  the  business,  and  bring  it  before  par- 
liament, then  he  was  to  give  it  a  handsome  support  on 
the  part  of  government."  But  no  sooner  was  Lord  Fitz- 
william landed  than  he  found  this  determination  had 
been  taken  by  the  Catholics. 

The  Catholics  of  Dublin  had  held  a  meeting  on  the  23d 
December,  and  agreed  to  a  petition  to  parliament,  claim- 
ing the  repeal  of  all  the  penal  laws.  Similar  petitions 
had  been  agreed  to  throughout  the  kingdom, — the  natu- 
ral consequences  of  its  being  known  for  some  months 


•  Letter  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  to  Lord  Carlisle. 


t  Ibid. 


\  Ibid 


In  thr  Rc  i^/i  of  George  IIL  617 

that  so  steady  and  itrenuous  a  friend  to  emancipation 
as  the  Duke  of  Portland  had  become  one  of  his  majesty's 
ministers.  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  finding,  therefore,  that  the 
question  would  force  itself  upon  his  immediate  consider- 
ation, communicated  his  opinion  and  intentions  to  the 
Engliih  government  on  the  third  day  after  his  arrival, 
in  the  following  terms:  "That,  not  to  grant  cheerfully, 
on  the  part  of  government,  all  the  Catholics  wished  for, 
would  not  :>nly  be  exceedingly  impolitic,  but  perhaps 
dangerous ;  that,  in  doing  this,  no  time  was  to  be  lost ;  that 
the  buziinecs  would  presently  be  at  hand  ;  and  that,  if  he 
received  no  very  peremptory  directions  to  the  contrary, 
he  would  acquiesce  to  the  wishes  of  the  Catholics."  * 

Parliament  met  on  the  22d  January,  and  on  the  I2th 
February,  "  nj  peremptory  directions  to  the  contrary 
having  arrived,"  '  hough  so  much  time  had  elapsed  since 
Lord  Fitzwilliam  had  communicated  his  intentions  to  the 
English  governir.ent,  Mr.  Grattan,  with  the  consent  of 
Lord  Fitzwilliar.1,  moved  for  leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  for 
the  further  relief  of  the  Catholics. 

Meanwhile  the  English  cabinet  forgot  the  stipulations 
which  they  liad  entered  into  with  Lord  Fitzwilliam, 
**  that,  if  the  Catholics  should  appear  determined  to  stir 
the  business,  and  bring  it  before  parliament,  he  was  to 
give  it  a  handsome  support  on  the  part  of  government ;" 
and  the  Duke  of  Portland  was  directed  by  Mr.  Pitt  to 
inform  Lord  Fitzwilliam  that,  notwithstanding  the  length 
to  svhich  the  Irish  government  had  gone,  it  must  retrace 
its  steps. 

"  Then,"  says  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  in  his  letter  to  Lore 
Carlisle,  "  it  appears  to  have  been  discovered  that  the 
deferring  of  it  would  be  not  merely  an  expediency,  or 
thing  to  be  desired  for  the  present,  but  the  means  o\ 
doing  a  greater  good  to  the  British  empire  than  it  has 


•  Letter  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  to  Lord  Caxlislc 


CIS  Penal  Laws 

been  capable  of  receiving  since  the  Revolution,  or  at  least 
since  the  Union." 

Lord  F'itzwiliiam  having  refused  to  become  a  part)/ 
to  the  inconsistency  of  iNIr.  Pitt  and  the  Duke  of  Port- 
land, that  fatal  measure  of  his  recall  was  determined 
upon, — a  measure  which  has  involved  Ireland  in  thirty 
years  of  suffering,  under  military  tyranny,  insurrection 
and  rebellion,  and  which,  at  times,  has  shaken  the  stability 
of  the  empire  to  its  centre. 

Upon  a  debate  in  the  House  of  Lords,  which  took 
place  soon  after  Lord  Fitzwilliam's  return  to  England, 
on  the  subject  of  his  conduct  in  Ireland,  Lord  West- 
moreland said,  by  the  direction  of  Mr.  Pitt,  "  that  he 
had  no  authority  whatever  from  ministers  in'this  country 
for  taking  the  steps  which  he  had  done  on  the  Catholic 
question."  The  incorrectness,  however,  of  this  assertion 
it  is  no  very  difficult  matter  to  expose.  In  the  first  place 
the  measure  of  emancipation  to  the  Catholics  was  origi- 
nall}^  the  measure  of  Mr.  Pitt  and  the  Westmoreland  ad- 
ministration.* "  The  most  strenuous  and  zealous  friends," 
says  Lord  Filzwilliam,  of  my  predecessor  claimed  the 
credit  of  it  for  their  patron  in  terms  of  the  highest  com- 
pliment. They  did  it  in  the  House  of  Commons,  they 
did  it  in  the  House  of  Lords  last  night.  The  person 
whom  Lord  Westmoreland  then  principally  consulted, 
opposed  it;  but  the  open  interference  of  Lord  Hobart, 
the  avowed  determination  of  the  British  cabinet,  com- 
municated as  such  to  the  Catholic  agents  on  the  spot, 
through  the  medium  of  confidential  persons  sent  over  to 
England  for  that  purpose,  bore  down  the  opposition. 
The  declarations  of  Mr.  Pitt  and  Mr.  Dundas  are  well 
known  in  this  countr}^  and  are  often  quoted  :  they  would 
not  risk  a  rebellion  in  Ireland  on  such  a  question." 

Pere,  tnen,  is  evidence  which  has  never  been  contro- 

•  Letter  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  to  Lord  Carlisle. 


In  tJic  Reign  of  George  III. 


619 


verlcd,  that,  even  before  Lord  Fitzwilliam  went  to  Ireland, 
the  measure  had  been  determined  upon  by  Mr.  Pitt, 
The  only  question,  therefore,  to  be  decided  in  judging 
of  the  correctness  of  Lord  Westmoreland's  assertion  is, . 
whether  or  not  Mr.  Pitt  had  consented  that  the  proper 
time  for  adopting  this  measure  was  arrived  when  Lord 
Fitzwilliam  was  sent  to  Ireland.  That  he  had  so  consented, 
there  is  in  proof  the  language  which  the  Duke  of 
Portland  had  held  so  publicly  for  years  back,"  that  the 
emancipation  of  the  Catholics  was  indispensably  neces- 
sary ;  there  is  the  fact  of  his  refusing  to  coalesce  with 
Mr.  Pitt  unless  this  measure  was  conceded  ;  there  are 
the  frequent  consultations  that  took  place  concerning 
it  between  Mr.  Pitt,  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  Mr.  Grattan  and 
Mr.  Ponsonby  ;  the  acceptance,  also,  of  the  ofSce  of 
lord-lieutenant  by  Lord  Fitzwilliam  ;  and,  finally,  the 
word  and  honor  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  that  Mr.  Pitt's  con- 
sent was  absolutely  given. 

No  event  in  our  history  has  ever  happened  that  has 
been  attended  with  miore  pernicious  consequences  than 
the  decision  that  Mr.  Pitt  at  this  time  made  to  recall  Lord 
Fitzwilliam. 

Had  he  allowed  the  Catholics  to  be  restored  to  their 
constitutional  rights,  they  would  have  secured  the  peace 
of  Ireland,  and  have  afforded  every  support  in  their  power 
to  the  government.  The  contrary  policy  threw  the  mass 
of  the  poorer  Catholics  into  the  hands  of  the  United  Irish- 
men, involved  the  country  in  a  civil  war,  and  established 
that  succession  of  disturbances  and  insurrections  which 
nave  prevailed  in  Ireland,  with  little  interruption,  from 
the  year  1795  to  the  present  time. 

When  the  differences  that  existed  between  the  lord- 
lieutenant  and  the  English  cabinet  were  known,  grief 
and  consternation  seized  all  who  had  flattered  themselves 
that  the  measures  of  his  excellency's  administration  were 
to  redress  the  grievances,  remove  the  discontents,  and 


620  •  Ptiial  LazL's 

work  the  salvation  of  Ireland.  In  the  House  of  Commong 
Sir  Lawrence  Parsons  moved  to  limit  the  money  bills  to 
two  months ;  but  Lord  Milton  and  Mr.  George  Ponsonby 
deprecated  the  measure,  and  it  was  rejected.  The  House 
of  Commons,  however,  unanimously  resolved  that  his 
excellency  had,  by  his  conduct  since  his  arrival,  merited 
(he  thanks  of  the  house,  and  the  confidence  of  the  people. 

Out  of  parliament  the  discontent  was  more  manifest. 
The  Catholics,  who  had  now  for  six  months  felt  secure 
of  being-  at  length  relieved  from  the  execrable  system  of 
pains  and  penalties,  as  the  Duke  of  Portland  himself  was 
accustomed  to  call  it,  now  saw  the  cup  dashed  from  their 
lips,  and  could  not  but  despair  of  ever  seeing  any  termina- 
tion to  the  duplicity  of  English  cabinets.  The  Catholics 
of  Dublin,  impelled  by  these  feelings,  assembled  on  the 
27th  February,  and  voted  a  petition  to  the  king  for  the 
continuance  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  as  their  chief  governor; 
and  those  of  the  whole  kingdom  followed  their  example, 
by  adopting  resolutions  and  addresses  expressive  of  the 
same  sentiments. 

The  Protestants,  too,  assembled  extensively,  and  as 
loudly  spoke  their  indignation  at  what  they  condemned 
as  ministerial  treachery,  and  considered  as  a  great  public 
calamity.  The  freemen  and  freeholders  of  the  cit}^  of 
Dublin,  like  the  Catholics,  agreed  to  a  petition  to  the 
king.  The  merchants  and  traders  of  the  city  expressed 
iheir  sorrow  at  the  rumored  recall  of  his  excellency,  and 
their  entire  concurrence  in  the  removal  of  all  religious 
disabilities. 

The  counties  of  Kildare,  Wexford,  Antrim  and  Lon- 
donderry, followed  the  example  of  the  freemen  and  free- 
holders of  the  capital,  and  the  same  sentiments  seemed 
to  pervade  every  part  of  the  kingdom.  The  active 
republicans  and  the  United  Irishmen  alone  were  not 
sorrv  at  the  ao:itation  and  controversies  vvhich  were 
Qow  springing  up. 


hi  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


621 


These  expressions,  however,  of  dissatisfaction  on  the 
part  of  the  Irish  people  were  of  no  avail.  Ireland  was 
doomed  to  see  a  system  of  burning  and  torture  succeed 
a  system  of  conciliation,  and  Lord  Camden  was  selected 
as  a  fit  person  to  succeed  Lord  Fitzwilliam  as  lord- 
lieutenant. 

The  measure  of  union  comes  the  next  in  the  course  of 
events  in  which  the  Catholics,  as  a  body,  were  concerned  : 
and,  in  strict  propriety,  it  would  be  right  now  to  proceed 
to  show  how  the  Catholics  were  affected  by  it.  But 
as  tliere  have  been,  ^md  still  are,  those  who,  either 
through  ignorance  or  in  defiance  of  all  regard  for  truth, 
assert  that  the  rebellion  of  1798  was  a  Catholic  rebellion, 
and  that  the  conduct  of  the  Catholics  on  that  occasion 
afforded  a  justification  for  refusing  to  grant  to  them  such, 
concessions,  it  will  contribute  to  promote  a  more  just 
view  of  the  subject  if  those  facts  are  referred  to,  which 
exist,  to  refute  the  supposition  that  the  Catholics,  as  a 
body,  were  concerned  in  the  rebellion. 

Fortunately  for  the  cause  of  truth  and  justice,  there 
do  exist  documents  the  authority  of  which  no  sophistry 
or  calumny  can  impeach.  These  are  the  reports  of  the 
committee  of  the  Irish  parliament.  They  so  minutely 
explain  the  cause,  the  conduct,  and  the  character  of  this 
rebellion,  and  give  such  accurate  information  respecting 
those  who  are  concerned  in  it,  that  it  is  impossible  foi 
any  one  to  affix  to  it  any  other  character  than  that  which 
they  have  given  to  it.  The  justification,  therefore,  of  the 
Catholics  by  these  reports  rests  upon  this  circumstance, 
that  to  maintain  that  the  rebellion  was  a  Catholic  rebellion 
is  to  dispute  the  authority  of  these  reports,  which  make 
no  such  charge,  and  account  for  it  by  other  means. 

The  following  extracts  from  the  report  of  the  commitee 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  appointed  in  1798  to  examine 
the  evidence,  contain  a  faithful  description  of  the  origin 
and  object  of  this  transaction  : — 


622 


Penal  Laws 


**  The  society,  under  the  name  of  United  Irishmen,  il 
appears,  was  established  in  1791  ;  its  founders  held  forth 
what  they  termed  Catholic  emancipation  and  parliamen- 
tary reform  as  the  ostensible  objects  of  their  union ;  hut 
it  clearly  appeared  from  the  letter  of  Theobald  Wolfe 
Tone,  accompan3'ing  their  original  constitution,  as  trans- 
nitted  to  Belfast  for  their  adoption,  that,  from  its  com- 
mencement, the  real  purpose  of  those  who  wxre  at  the 
head  of  the  institution  was  to  separate  Ireland  from  Great 
Britain,  and  to  subvert  the  established  constitution  of 
this  kingdom.  In  corroboration  of  which  your  committee 
have  annexed  to  this  report  several  of  their  earl}'  publica- 
tions, particularly  a  prospectus  of  the  society,  which 
appeared  in  the  beginning  of  the  year  1791,  as  also  the 
.plan  of  reform  they  recommended  to  the  people. 

"  For  the  first  three  years  their  attention  was  entirely 
directed  to  the  engaging  in  their  society  persons  of 
activity  and  talents,  in  every  quarter  of  the  kingdom, 
and  in  preparing  the  public  mind  for  their  future  pur- 
poses, by  the  circulation  of  the  most  seditious  publi- 
cations, particularly  the  w^orks  of  Mr.  Thomas  Paine. 
At  this  time,  however,  the  leaders  were  rather  cautious 
of  alarming  minds  not  sufficiently  ripe  for  the  adoption 
of  their  principles,  by  the  too  open  disclosure  of  the  real 
objects  which  they  had  in  view.  In  1795  the  text  of  the 
society  underwent  a  striking  revision  ;  the  words  in  the 
amended  text  stand,  *  A  full  representation  of  the  people,' 
omitting  the  words,  *  In  the  Commons  House  of  Par- 
liament.' the  reason  for  which  has  been  admitted  by 
three  members  of  the  executive,  examined  before  3'our 
committee,  to  be  the  better  to  reconcile  reformers  and 
republicans  in  a  common  exertion  to  overthrow  the 
state. 

"In  the  summer  of  1796  great  numbers  of  persons, 
principally  in  the  province  of  Ulster,  had  enrolled  tbem- 
cclves  in  this  society.    About  the  same  period,  as  will  be 


/;/  the  Reign  of  George  IIL 


623 


more  fully  explained  hereafter,  a  direct  commiinicalion 
had  been  opened  by  the  heads  of  the  party  with  the  enemy, 
and  French  assistance  was  solicited,  and  promised  to  be 
specdil}^  sent  in  aid  of  the  disaffected  in  this  kingdom. 

**  With  a  view  of  being  prepared  as  much  as  possible  to 
cooperate  with  the  enemy  then  expected,  and  in  order 
to  counteract  the  effect  of  the  armed  associations  of 
yeomanry,  established  in  October,  1796,  directions  were 
issued  by  the  leaders  to  the  societies  to  form  themselves 
into  military  bodies,  and  to  be  provided  with  arms  and 
ammunition. 

"  These  directions  were  speedily  obeyed  ;  the  societies 
assumed  a  new  military  form,  and  it  appears  by  the 
original  papers  seized  at  Belfast  in  the  month  of  April, 
179/,  that  their  numbers  at  that  period,  in  the  province 
of  Ulster  alone,  were  stated  to  amount  to  nearly  one  hun- 
dred thousand  men ;  that  they  were  largely  supplied 
with  fire-arms  and  pikes  ;  that  they  had  some  cannon  and 
ammunition,  and  were  diligently  employed  in  the  study 
of  military  tactics;  in  short,  that  nothing  was  neglected 
by  the  party  which  could  enable  them  to  take  the  field 
on  the  arrival  of  the  enemy,  or  whenever  they  might 
receive  orders  to  that  effect  from  their  superior  officers, 
whom  they  were  bound  by  oath  to  obey." 

In  the  report  of  the  committee  of  1797,  it  appears  that 
no  part  of  the  kingdom  in  which  the, Catholic  popula- 
tion prevails  was  organized,  except  the  counties  of  West- 
meath  and  Kildare,  and  the  city  of  Dublin.  These  ex- 
tracts establisii  the  following  facts  : — 

1.  That  the  persons  who  were  the  founders  of  the 
rebellion  were  those  who  formed  the  societies  of  United 
Irishmen,  and  who  were  all  Protestants. 

2.  That  the  object  of  the  rebellion  was  a  republican 
form  of  government  and  separation  from  England,  and 
not  Catholic  emancipation,  or  the  estaolisnment  of  tne 
Catholic  religion. 


624 


Penal  Laws 


3.  That  in  May,  1797,  no  Catholic  whatever  was  con- 
cerned in  the  rebellion,  except  some  of  the  lowest  orders 
in  Dublin,  and  in  the  counties  of  Westmeath  and  Kil- 
dare ;  and, 

4.  That  one  hundred  thousand  Protestants  were,  in 
May,  1797,  completely  organized  for  open  rebellion,  and 
well  supplied- with  arms. 

Now,  as  we  learn  from  the  evidence  of  Mr.  McNevm, 
before  the  committee  of  the  House  of  Lords,  in  1798, 
that  the  leaders  of  the  measure  had  determined  to  com- 
mence operations  in  1797,  let  us  suppose  the  rebellion  had 
then  broken  out,  and  ask  this  question,  Would  it  have 
been  a  Catholic  rebellion  ?  Certainly  not.  No  man  could 
venture  to  maintain  an  opinion  so  utterly  untenable. 
Then,  if  the  reJbellion,  had  it  broken  out  in  1797,  would 
have  been  a  rebellion  of  Protestants,  and  not  one  of 
Catholics,  how  could  it  become  a  Catholic  rebellion  in 
1798?  Let  us  again  refer  to  the  report  of  the  secret 
committee.  This  gives  an  accurate  account  of  the  pro- 
gress of  the  rebellion  during  the  year  1797,  and  shows 
by  what  means,  and  by  whom,  the  deluded  Catholic 
peasantry  of  the  South  were  made  parties  to  the  treason  : 

'*  It  appears  to  your  committee  that  the  leaders  of 
the  treason,  apprehensive  lest  the  enemy  might  be  dis- 
couraged from  any  further  plan  of  invasion  by  the  loyal 
disposition  manifested  throughout  Munster  and  Con- 
naught  (the  two  great  Catholic  provinces)  on  their  for- 
mer attempt  (by  Hoche,  in  December,  1796),  determined 
to  direct  all  their  exertions  to  the  propagation  of  the 
system  in  those  provinces  which  had  hitherto  been  but 
partially  infected.  With  this  view,  emissaries  were  sent 
into  tne  South  and  West  in  great  numbers,  of  whose 
success  in  forming  new  societies,  and  administering  the 
oaths  of  the  union,  there  were,  in  the  course  of  a  few 
months,  but  too  evident  proofs,  in  the  introduction  of 
the  same  disturbances  and  enormities  into  ^lunster 


hi  the  Reign  df  George  IIL 


625 


with  which  the  northern  province  had  been  so  severely 
visited. 

"  In  order  to  engage  the  peasantry  in  the  southern 
counties,  particularly  in  the  counties  of  Waterford  and 
Cork,  the  more  eagerly  to  their  cause,  the  United  Irish- 
men found  it  expedient,  in  urging  their  general  principles, 
to  dwell  with  peculiar  energy  on  the  supposed  oppres- 
siveness of  tithes  (which  had  been  the  pretext  for  the 
old  Whiteboy  insurrections) ;  and  it  is  observable  that, 
in  addition  to  the  acts  of  violence  usually  resorted  to  by 
the  party  for  the  furtherance  of  their  purposes,  the 
ancient  practice  of  burning  the  corn  and  houghing  the 
cattle  of  those  against  whom  their  resentment  was 
directed,  was  revived,  and  very  generally  practised  in 
those  counties. 

"  With  a  view  to  excite  the  resentment  of  the  Cath- 
olics, and  to  turn  their  resentment  to  the  purpose  of  the 
party,  fabricated  and  false  texts  were  presented,  as  having 
been  taken  to  exterminate  Catholics,  and  were  industri- 
ously disseminated  by  emissaries  of  the  treason  through- 
out the  provinces  of  Leinster,  Munster  and  Connaught. 
Reports  were  frequently  circulated  amongst  the  ignorant 
of  the  Catholic  persuasion,  that  large  bodies  of  men 
were  coming  to  put  them  to  death.  This  fabrication, 
however  extravagant,  was  one  among  the  many  wicked 
means  by  which  the  deluded  peasantry  were  engaged 
the  more  readily  in  the  treason. 

"  The  measures  thus  adopted  by  the  party  *  completely 
succeeded  in  detaching  the  minds  of  the  lower  classes 
from  their  usual  habits  and  pursuits,  insomuch  that,  in 
the  course  of  the  autumn  and  winter,  1797,  the  peasantry, 
in  the  midland  and  southern  counties,  were  swo?  n  and 
ripe  for  insurrection." 

From  this  account  ot  the  progress  of  the  treason  in 
1797,  in  the  South  of  Ireland,  the  following  inferences 


•  The  Protestant  United  Irishmen. 


G26 


Penal  Laws 


may  be  deduced:  ist,  that  the  Catholics  of  Ireland 
were  unconnected  with  the  system  of  rebellion  which 
had  extended  over  the  whole  of  the  Protestant  province 
of  Ulster;  2d,  that  the  peasantry  of  the  South  were  cor- 
rupted by  emissaries  sent  amongst  them  by  the  leaders 
of  the  treason  in  the  North,  and  not  by  the  Catholic 
clergy  or  Catholic  aristocracy;  and,  3d,  that  the  organi- 
zation of  the  South  was  not  a  distinct  effort  of  a  distinct 
body  of  people,  but  a  measure  subsidiary  to  the  original 
organization  of  the  Protestants  of  the  North,  conducted 
by  the  same  party,  and  having  the  same  object  in  con- 
templation. 

Then  it  follows  that  the  leaders  of  the  rebellion,  being 
the  same  in  1798  as  they  were  in  1797,  the  object  of  it 
the  same  in  1798  as  it  was  in  1797,  the  means  for  carry- 
ing  it  into  effect  in  1798  the  same  as  the  means  for  carry- 
mg  it  into  effect  in  1797,  there  can  be  no  more  grounds 
for  calling  it  a  Catholic  rebellion  in  1798  than  there  w^erc 
for  calling  it  a  Catholic  rebellion  in  1797  ;  and,  therefore, 
as  there  were  no  grounds  for  affixing  this  character  to  it 
in  1797,  neither  are  there  any  for  calling  it  a  Catholic 
rebellion  in  1798. 

In  direct  contradiction,  however,  of  such  a  conclusion, 
and  of  the  statements  of  the  secret  committee,  it  has  been 
asserted  b}'  those  who  are  interested  in  calumniating  the 
character  of  the  Irish  rebellion,  and  believed  by  those 
who  are  ignorant  of  its  true  nature,  that  it  was  a  Catholic 
rebellion ;  that  the  designs  of  the  Catholic  body  went 
to  the  massacre  and  destruction  of  every  Protestant  in 
Ireland,  and  that  all  their  other  plans  were  wholly  sub- 
seivient  to  that  of  establishing  the  Catholic  religion.* 


•  These  are  tlie  propositions  which  Sir  Richard  Musgrave  has  labored  to 
maintain.  His  work  professes  to  do  that  which  the  secret  committee  of  the 
House  of  Commons  was  appointed  to  do,  namely :  to  give  a  faithful  account  of 
this  rebellion.  A  discerning  public  will  at  once  see  to  which  authority  they 
ought  to  give  a  preference     Sir  Richard  dedicated  his  first  edition  to  Lord 


///  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


627 


As  to  the  conduct  of  the  Catholic  clergy  of  the  county 
of  Wexford,  it  is  well  known  '*  that  not  one  of  them  who 
had  a  flock,  not  one  parish  priest  was  implicated,  or  had 
any  concern  in  fomenting,  encouraging  or  aiding  the 
rebellion ;  nay,  it  is  certain  that  they  abhorred  and 
detested  and  shuddered  at  it  as  the  most  wicked, 
scandalous,  and  abominable  event  that  they  had  ever 
witnessed."* 

The  supposition  that  the  establishment  of  the  Cath- 
olic religion  was  one  of  the  objects  of  this  rebellion,  is 
proved  to  be  unfounded  by  the  evidence  of  the  princi- 
pal leaders,  Emmett  and  McNeiven. 

The  following  are  their  answers,  given  before  the 
committee,  to  the  question,  Whether  or  not  they  w^ould 
set  up  the  Catholic  religion  ?" 

McNeiven. — I  would  no  more  consent  to  that  than  to 
the  establishment  of  Mahometanism." 

Emmett. — "  I  do  not  think  the  Catholics  would  wish  to 
set  up  a  Catholic  establishment,  even  at  the  present  day. 
Perhaps  some  old  priests,  who  have  long  groaned  under 
the  penal  laws,  might  wish  for  a  retribution  to  them- 
selves, but  I  do  not  think  the  young  priests  wish  for 
it;  and  I  am  convinced  the  laity  would  not  submit  to  it, 

Comwallis.  Upon  heading  it,  however,  Lord  Cornwallis  directed  his  secretary 
to  write  the  following  letter  to  him  : 

"DUBLIX,  March  24,  1 801. 
"  Sir  : — I  am  directed  by  the  lord-lieutenant  to  express  to  you  his  concern 
at  its  appearing  that  your  late  publication  of  the  *  History  of  the  Rebellions 
of  Ireland*  has  been  dedicated  to  him  by  permission. 

•  *  Had  his  excellency  been  apprised  of  the  contents  and  nature  of  the  work,  he 
would  never  have  lent  the  sanction  of  his  name  to  a  book  which  tends  so 
Etrongly  to  revive  the  dreadful  animosities  which  have  so  long  distracted  this 
country,  and  which  it  is  the  duty  of  every  good  subject  to  endeavor  to  compose. 

•*  His  excellency,  therefore,  desires  me  to  request  that,  in  any  future  edition 
of  the  book,  the  permission  ^o  dedicate  it  to  him  may  be  omitted. 

"  I  have,  etc, 

"  E.  LITTLEHALE.S." 

•  See  "Dr.  Caulfield's  Reply  to  Sir  R.  Musgrave,"  sold  by  Keatinjj  &  Col- 
Duke  Street 


G28 


Penal  Laws 


and  that  the  objections  to  it  will  be  every  dav  j^ainin^: 
strength.  ' 

Only  two  circumstances  more  remain  to  be  taken  notice 
of  regarding  the  conduct  of  the  Catholics,  as  a  body,  in 
this  rebellion.  One  of  them,  the  indisputable  fact,  that 
of  the  twenty-four  leaders  of  the  rebellion  who  were 
banished  to  Fort  St.  George,  only  four  of  them  were 
Catholics,  twelve  were  of  the  Church  of  England,  and 
the  remaining  eight  were  Dissenters.  Well  indeed,  then, 
might  Mr.  Pitt  say,  in  the  House  of  Commons,  in  1805, 
whose  opinion  is  the  other  circumstance  alluded  to :  "I 
do  not  consider  the  late  rebellion  in  Ireland  to  have  been 
a  Catholic  rebellion."* 

Facts,  reason  and  authority,  therefore,  it  appears,  all 
coincide  in  the  condemnation  Of  the  calumny  which 
a  few  blind  and  mistaken  men  have  had  just  talent 
enough  to  propagate  amongst  the  ignorant  and  pre- 
judiced. The  magjia  vis  veritatis  will,  however,  prevail 
on  this,  as  well  as  upon  all  other  occasions,  and  sooner 
or  later  bring  forward  the  unfortunate  and  much-injured 
Catholics  of  Ireland  to  the  view  of  their  English  fellow- 
subjects  as  highly  deserving  of  their  confidence  and 
their  affection. 

The  next  great  event  belonging  to  the  Catholic  ques- 
tion is  the  measure  of' Union,  not  as  having,  in  any  way, 
altered  the  political  condition  of  the  Catholics  in  respect 
to  the  penal  laws,  but  as  <\  measure  concerning  which  a 
compact  was  virtually  entered  into  between  them  and 
the  English  government.  For,  though  it  is  true  that  no 
regular  articles  like  those  of  Limerick  can  be  produced 
to  prove  this  compact,  still  there  is  circumstantial  evi 
dence  of  such  a  natuie  as  is  sufficient  to  bring  conviction 
to  every  candid  mind  that,  on  the  one  hand,  the  Cath- 
olics did  agree  to  support  the  Union,  and,  on  the  others 
that  the  English  government,  on  their  part,  did  indi- 

•  •'Debates  on  the  Cathchc  Petition." 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


rectly  agree  to  secure  to  them,  in  consideration  of  that 
support,  the  measure  of  emancipation. 

This  evidence  is  to  be  collected,  ist,  from  the  speech 
of  Mr.  Pitt,  on  proposing  the  Union  articles  to  the  House 

Commons  ;  2dly,  from  the  act  of  Union  ;  3dly,  from  Mr. 
r  ict  s  speech,  and  bis  letters  and  those  of  Lord  Cornwalhs 
concerning  the  change  of  administration  in  i8oi. 

First,  Mr.  Pitt's  speech : — I  am  well  aware,"  says 
Mr.  Pitt,  *'  that  the  subject  of  religious  distinction  is  a 
dangerous  and  delicate  topic,  especially  when  applied  to 
a  country  such  as  Ireland,  the  situation  of  which,  in  this 
respect,  is  different  from  ever}^  other.  When  the  estab- 
lished religion  of  the  state  is  the  same  as  the  general 
religion  of  the  empire,  and  where  the  property  of  the 
country  is  in  the  hands  of  a  comparatively  small  number 
of  persons  professing  that  religion,  while  the  religion  of 
a  great  majority  of  the  people  is  different,  it  is  not  easy 
to  say,  on  general  principles,  what  system  of  church 
establishment,  in  such  a  country,  would  be  free  from  dif- 
ficulty and  inconvenience.  By  many  I  know  it  will  be 
contended  that  the  religion  professed  by  the  majority  of 
the  people  would  at  least  be  entitled  to  an  equality  of 
privileges.  I  have  heard  such  an  argument  urged  in  this 
house ;  but  those  who  apply  it,  without  qualification, 
to  the  case  of  Ireland,  forget,  surely,  the  principles  on 
which  English  interest  and  Englishconnection  have  been 
established  in  that  country,  and  its  present  legislature 
IS  formed.  No  man  can  say  that,  in  the  present  state  of 
things,  and  while  Ireland  remains  a  separate  kingdom, 
full  concessions  could  be  made  to  the  Catholics  without 
endangering  the  state,  and  shaking  the  constitution  t<. 
its  centre." 

Is  not  this  as  much  as  to  say  that,  after  an  incorpo- 
rate union  shall  have  taken  place,  these  full  concessions 
could  be  made  without  endan2:erinsc  Ireland?  Could 
these  words  be  understood  in  any  other  way  by  tlic 


630 


Filial  Lazi's 


Catholics?  Are  they  not  an  indirect  offer,  on  the  part  of 
Mr.  Pitt,  to  the  CathoHcs,  to  make  these  lull  concessions, 
provided  they  would  enable  him  to  make  them  with- 
out endangering  the  state?  But  the  language  which  he 
next  employs  is  stronger  and  still  more  in  point.  He  im- 
mediately proceeds  :  "  On  the  other  hand,  without  anti- 
cipating the  discussion,  or  the  propriety  of  agitating  the 
question,  or  saying  how  soon  or  how  late  it  may  be  fit  to 
discuss  it,  two  propositions  are  indisputable:  ist.  When 
the  conduct  of  the  Catholics  shall  be  such  as  to  make  it 
safe  for  the  government  to  admit  them  to  the  participa- 
tion of  the  privileges  granted  to  those  of  the  established 
religion,  and  when  the  temper  of  the  times  shall  be 
favorable  to  such  a  measure, — when  those  events  take 
place,  it  is  obvious  that  such  a  question  may  be  agitated 
in  an  united  imperial  parliament  with  greater  safety  than 
it  could  be  in  a  separate  legislature.  In  the  second  place, 
I  think  it  certain  that,  even  for  whatever  period  it  may 
be  thought  necessary,  after  the  Union,  to  withhold  from 
the  Catholics  the  enjoyment  of  those  advantages,  many  of 
the  objections  which  at  present  arise  out  of  their  situation 
would  be  removed  if  the  Protestant  legislature  were  no 
longer  separate  and  local,  but  general  and  impartial." 

The  speech  from  which  the  foregoing  is  extracted  was 
circulated  gratis,  by  government,  throughout  Ireland. 
It  was  considered  by  the  Catholics  as  a  tender  of  eman- 
cipation ;  it  was  anxiously  read  by  all  who  could  read ; 
at  the  Castle  it  was  explained  to  those  who  sought  for 
explanation,  as  an  unequivocal  offer  of  every  conces- 
sion and,  in  the  result,  the  Catholics  opposed  their  own 
parliament,  and  gave  their  support  to  Mr.  Pitt,  and,  by 
the  aid  of  this  support,  he  was  enabled  to  contend  with 
a  majority  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  finally  to  carry 
the  measure. 

We  come  now  to  the  evidence  to  be  collected  from  the 
act  of  Union. 


« 


Tn  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


G31 


Many  of  the  leading  Catholics  have  not  hesitated 
to  declare  that  the  oath  prescribed  by  this  act  »  to 
qualify  members  of  parliament  to  take  their  seats,  was 
framed  under  an  arrangement  that,  immediately  after  the 
measure  was  passed,  they  were  to  enjoy  the  privilege  of 
sitting  in  parliament.  The  act  runs  thus :  That  every 
one  of  the  Lords  and  Commons  of  parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom,  and  every  member  of  the  House  of 
Commons  of  the  United  Kingdom,  in  the  first  and  every 
succeeding  parliament  shall,  until  the  parliament  of  the 
United  Kingdom  shall  otherwise  provide,  take  the  oath 
as  now  enjoined  to  be  taken."  Do  not  quibble  with  us," 
the  Catholics  say,  concerning  terms  and  formalities ; 
it  was  clearly  understood  between  us  that,  il  we  cooper- 
ated to  bring  about  the  Union,  as  we  actually  did,  you 
would  effect  the  emancipation.  To  give  a  coloring  to 
this  engagement,  you  inserted  in  the  articles  of  union 
an  intimation  of  a  proposed  change  of  the  oaths  in  our 
favor,  when,  behold  I  now  you  roundly  tell  us  that  this 
alteration  never  shall  take  place,  and  that  we  must  make 
up  our  minds  to  wear  our  shackles  till  the  end  of  time." 

The  third  head  of  evidence  is  Mr.  Pitt's  speech,  on  ex- 
plaining the  cause  of  his  resignation,  in  1801  :  "  As  to  the 
merits,"  Mr.  Pitt  said,  of  the  question  which  led  to  my 
resignation,  1  am  willing  to  submit  them  to  the  house. 
I  and  some  of  my  colleagues  in  office  did  feel  it  an  in- 
cumbe-nt  duty  upon  us  to  propose  a  measure  on  the  part 
of  government  which,  under  the  circumstances  of  the 
union  so  happily  effected  between  the  two  countries,  we 
thought  of  great  public  importance,  and  necessary  to 
complete  the  benefits  likely  to  result  from  that  measure. 
We  felt  this  opinion  so  strongly  that,  when  we  met  with 
circumstances  which  rendered  it  impossible  for  us  to 
propose  it  as  a  measure  of  government,  we  felt  it  equally 
inconsistent  with  our  duty  and  our  honor  any  longer  to 
remain  a  part  of  that  government.    What  may  be  the 


632 


Penal  Laws 


opinion  of  others,  I  know  not;  but  1  beg  to  have  it  un- 
derstood to  be  a  measure  which,  if  I  had  remained  in 
government,  I  must  have  proposed."  * 

Why  must  Mr.  Pitt  have  proposed  this  measure  ?  *  To 
this  question  one  answer  alone  can  be  given  :  because 
his  honor,  as  a  statesman,  was  substantially  engaged  to 
the  Catholics  that,  if  they  supported  the  Union,  he  would 
propose  emancipation. 

We  now  come  to  the  written  communications  which, 
at  this  time,  were  made  to  the  Catholics  by  Mr.  Pitt 
and  Lord  Cornwallis,  and  which  were  given  by  Lord 
•  Castlereagh  to  Dr.  Troy. 

Mr.  Pitt  to  Lord  Cornwallis: — 

"  The  leading  part  of  his  majesty's  ministers,  find- 
ing insurmountable  obstacles  to  the  bringing  forward 
measures  of  concession  to  the  Catholic  body  whilst  in 
office,  have  felt  it  impossible  to  continue  in  administra- 
tion under  the  inabihty  to  propose  it,  with  the  circum- 
stances necessary  to  carrying  the  measure  with  all  its 
advantages,  and  they  have  retired  from  his  majesty's 
service,  considering  this  line  of  conduct  as  most  likely 
to  contribute  to  its  ultimate  success. 

"  The  Catholic  body  will  therefore  see  how  much 
their  future  hopes  must  depend  upon  strengthening 
their  cause  by  good  conduct  in  the  meantime  ;  they  will 
prudently  consider  their  prospects  as  arising  from  the 
persons  who  now  espouse  their  interests,  and  compare 
them  with  those  which  they  could  look  to  from  any 
other  quarter;  they  may  with  confidence  rely  on  the 
;?ealous  support  of  all  those  who  retire,  and  of  many 
who  remain  in  office,  when  it  can  be  given  with  a  pros- 
pect of  success.  They  may  be  assured  that  Mr.  Pitt 
will  do  his  utmost  to  establish  their  cause  in  the  public 
favor,  and  prepare  the  way  for  their  finally  attaining 
their  objects ;  and  the  Catholics  will  feel  that,  as  Mr.  Pitt 

*    Debrett's  Debates,"  14  and  161. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


C33 


could  not  concur  in  a  hopeless  attempt  to  force  it  now, 
ne  must  at  all  times  repress,  with  the  same  decision 
as  if  he  held  an  adverse  opinion,  any  unconstitutional 
conduct  in  the  Catholic  body. 

*'  Under  these  circumstances,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that 
the  Catholics  will  take  the  most  loyal,  dutiful  and  patient 
line  of  conduct ;  that  they  will  not  suffer  themselves  to  be 
led  into  measures  which  can,  by  any  construction,  give 
a  handle  to  the  opposers  of  their  wishes  either  to  mis- 
interpret their  principles,  or  to  raise  an  argument  for 
resisting  their  claims ;  but  that,  by  their  prudent  and  ex- 
V  emplary  demeanor,  they  will  afford  additional  grounds  to 
the  growing  number  of  their  advocates  to  enforce  their 
claims  on  proper  occasions,  until  their  objects  can  be 
finally  and  advantageously  attained." 

The  sentiments  of  a  sincere  friend  e.;  Marquis  of 
Cornwallis)  to  the  Catholic  claims  : — 

"  If  the  Catholics  should  now  proceed  to  violence,  or 
entertain  any  ideas  of  gaining  their  object  by  conclusive 
measures,  or  forming  associations  v^^ith  men  of  Jacobinical 
principles,  they  must  of  course  lose  the  support  and  aid 
of  those  who  have  sacrificed  their  own  situations  in  their 
cause,  but  who  would,  at  the  same  time,  feel  it  to  be 
their  indispensable  duty  to  oppose  everything  tending  to 
confusion. 

On  the  other  hand,  should  the  Catholics  be  sensible 
of  the  benefit  they  possess  by  having  so  many  characters 
of  eminence  pledged  not  to  embark  in  the  service  of 
government  except  on  the  terms  of  the  Catholic  privi- 
leges being  obtained,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that,  on  balancing 
the  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  their  situation,  they 
would  prefer  a  quiet  and  peaceable  demeanor  to  any  line 
of  conduct  of  an  opposite  description." 

The  originals  of  these  two  declarations  were  handed 
.  to  Dr.  Troy,  and  afterward  to  Lord  Fingal,  by  the  Mar 
quis  of  Cornwallis.    His  excellency  desired  they  should 


634 


Penal  Laws 


be  discreetly  communicated  to  the  bishops  and  principal 
Catholics,  but  not  inserted  in  the  newspapers.  Thej 
appear&d,  nevertheless,  in  the  English  prints  soon  after- 
ward, and  were  copied  into  the  Irish  papers. 

Under  circumstances  such  as  these,  is  it  surprising  that 
the  Catholics  should  now  feel  that  faith  has  been  broken 
with  them  by  the  government  of  England? 

Mr.  Pitt,  so  long  ago  as  in  Lord  Westmoreland's  admin- 
istration, had  made  no  hesitation  to  say,  in  such  a  manner 
that  his  sentiments  might  be  known  to  the  Catholics,  that 
he  would  not  risk  a  rebellion  by  withholding  emancipa- 
tion. In  1795  he  sent  Lord  Fitzwilliam  Vd  Ireland,  to  carry 
this  measure  into  effect;  and  in  1799  he  held  forth,  in 
language  not  to  be  misunderstood,  this  measure  as  the 
reward  which  he  would  give  the  Catholics  for  their  sup- 
port to  the  Union. 

At  this  time  he  had  governed  England  for  fourteen 
years ;  he  was  supported  by  great  majorities  in  parlia- 
ment, and  he  possessed  the  unbounded  confidence  of  the 
king  and  of  the  people.  What  other  construction  could 
his  language  on  the  Union  bear  among  the  Catholics  than 
that  of  a  positive  engagement,  on  the  part  of  England,  to 
give  them  emancipation,  provided  they  gave  the  Union, 
in  the  first  instant,  their  support.'^  No  one  can  say  that 
they  formed  their  expectations  that  this  measure  would 
be  conceded  to  them,  without  good  grounds  for  doing 
so ;  and  there  being  good  grounds,  no  correct  moraUst 
can  maintain  that  England  made  no  such  engagement. 

Having  now  traced  the  history  of  the  penal  laws  and 
the  Catholics  from  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  down  to  the 
Union,  it  remains  only  to  make  a  conclusion  of  this  work, 
by  collecting  the  several  inferences  which  may  be  drawn 
from  the  facts  contained  in  it. 

In  the  first  place,  the  Catholics  have  to  complain  of 
two  distinct  breaches  of  faith  by  the  government  of 
England  :  ist,  in  the  violation  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick ; 


///  the  Reign  of  George  IIL 


635 


and,  2dly,  in  the  treatment  which  they  have  received 
since  the  Union. 

Secondly. — They  have  to  complain  of  having  endured 
a  greater  share  of  insult  and  of  oppression  than  it  ever  . 
was  the  lot  of  any  people,  in  any  other  country,  to  be 
exposed  to. 

Thirdly. — They  have  it  in  their  power  to  repel  all 
those  charges  that  have  been  made  against  them  of  being 
disloyal  to  the  House  of  Brunswick:  ist,  b}^  their  con- 
duct in  1715;  2dly,  by  their  conduct  in  1745;  sdly,  by 
their  conduct  in  1798. 

Fourthly. —  They  have  it  in  their  power  to  show  that 
their  clergy  have  at  all  times  inculcated  sound  doctrines 
of  morality,  of  peace  and  submission  to  the  government, 
and  of  brotherly  affection  for  their  Protestant  fellow- 
countrymen. 

Fifthly. — They  can  prove  that  their  religious  principles 
nave  been  wholly  misunderstood,  and  that  these  prin- 
ciples are  not,  in  any  degree,  repugnant  to  their  duty 
as  loyal  subjects.* 

Sixthly. — This  very  important  inference  may  be  drawn 
from  what  has  already  been  stated,  namely  :  that  for  a 
long  period  of  time  there  has  prevailed  amongst  the 
Protestants  of  Ireland  a  very  general  inclination  to 
concede  to  the  Catholics  a  participation  with  them  in 
constitutional  privileges. 

And  lastly. — When  we  consider  the  effects,  direct  and 
collateral,  of  such  a  penal  code  as  has  existed  in  Ireland, 
it  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  it  may  be  laid  down  as 
incontrovertibly  proved  that  it  is  to  the  penal  code 
England  has  to  look  as  the  source  of  all  the  alarm  she 
now  entertains  for  the  safety  of  Ireland  ;  and  to  England 
Ireland  has  to  look  for  the  cause  of  all  the  misery  and 
degradation  which,  at  this  day  even,  peculiarly  mark  her 
character  among  the  nations  of  the  world. 

*  Is'oie  c. 

I 


G3G 


Penal  Laws 


We  shall  conclude  this  history  of  the  penal  laws  with 
stating  what  the  opinions  are,  concerning  them  and  the 
Catholic  religion,  of  men  entitled  to  the  highest  public 
veneration  for  their  great  authority  as  divines  and 
statesmen. 

The  following  is  the  testimony  of  an  Irish  Protestant 
Bishop  of  Down,  in  1647 

**  To  this  antiquity  of  doctrine,"  he  says,  "  is  annexed 
an  uninterrupted  succession  of  their  bishops  from  the 
apostles,  and  particularly  of  their  supreme  bishop,  St. 
Peter,  whose  personal  prerogatives  were  so  great ;  and 
the  advantageous  manner  in  which  many  eminent  prelates 
of  other  sees  have  expressed  themselves  with  regard  to 
the  Church  of  Rome.  This  prerogative  includes  the 
advantages  of  monarchy,  and  the  constant  benefits  which 
are  derived  from  that  form  of  government. 

Nor  does  the  multitude  and  variety  of  people  who 
are  of  this  persuasion,  their  apparent  consent  with  elder 
ages,  and  their  agreement  with  one  another,  form  a  less 
presumption  in  their  favor.  The  same  conclusion  must 
be  inferred  from  the  differences  which  have  arisen 
amongst  their  adversaries;  the  casualties  which  have 
happened  to  many  of  them ;  the  oblique  and  sinister 
proceedings  of  some  who  have  left  their  communion. 

"  To  these  negative  arguments  the  Catholics  add  those 
of  a  more  positive  kind  :  the  beauty  and  splendor  of  the 
Church  of  Rome,  her  solemn  service,  the  stateHness  and 
magnificence  of  her  hierarchy,  and  the  name  of'  Catholic,* 
which  she  claims  as  her  own  due,  and  to  concern  no 
other  sect  of  Christianity.  It  has  been  their  happiness  to 
be  instrumental  to  the  conversion  of  many  nations.  The 
world  is  witness  to  the  piety  and  austerity  of  their 
religious  ordei"S,  to  the  single  life  of  their  priests  and 
bishops,  the  severity  of  their  fasts  and  observances,  the 
great  reputation  of  many  of  their  clergy  for  faith  and 


*  Dr  Jeremy  Taylor. 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III. 


G37 


sanctity,  and  the  known  holiness  of  some  of  those  per- 
sons  whose  institutes  the  religious  orders  follow."* 

Lord  Chancellor  Hardwicke,  perhaps  the  most  emi- 
nent lawyer  of  modern  times,  treated  the  incapacities 
and  disabilities  which  affected  Catholics  as  penalties  of 
the  severest  nature. 

In  the  memorable  conference  between  the  Houses  of 
Peers  and  Commons  of  England  respecting  the  occa- 
sional conformity  bill,  the  managers  of  the  former  house 
(amongst  whom  was  the  great  Lord  Soraers)  solemnly 
declared  *'  that  an  honest  man  cannot  be  reduced  to  a 
more  unhappy  condition  than  to  be  put,  by  law,  under 
an  incapacity  of  serving  his  prince  and  his  country,  and 
that,  therefore,  nothing  but  a  crime  of  the  most  detest- 
able nature  ought  to  put  him  under  such  a  disability." 

The  Irish,"  says  Dr.  Johnson,  "  are  in  a  most  unnatural 
state,  for  there  we  see  the  minority  prevailing  over  the 
majority.  There  is  no  instance,  even  in  the  ten  persecu- 
tions, of  such  severity  as  that  which  has  been  exercised 
over  the  Catholics  of  Ireland." 

Dr.  Law,  Bishop  of  Elphin,  in  his  speech  in  the  Irish 
House  of  Lords  on  the  Catholic  Bill  of  1793,  delivered 
the  following  opinion  :  "  He  felt  it  his  duty  to  declare 
fully  his  sentiments  on  these  points,  because  he  looked 
upon  his  Roman  Catholic  brethren  as  fellow-subjects  and 
fellow-Christians,  believers  in  the  same  God,  and  part 
ners  in  the  same  redemption.  Speculative  differences  ii 
some  points  of  faith  from  him  were  of  no  account ;  they 
and  he  had  but  one  rehgion, — the  religion  of  Christianity. 
Therefore,  as  children  of  the  same  Father,  as  travellers 
on  the  same  road,  and  seekers  of  the  same  salvation,  why 
not  love  each  other  as  brothers?  It  was  no  part  of  Pro- 
testantism to  persecute  Catholics ;  and  without  justice 
to  the  Catholics,  there  could  be  no  securit}'  for  the  Pro- 
testant establishment." 


•  "  Statement  of  Penal  Laws,"  p.  136. 


6S8 


Penal  Laws 


Dj  .  Watson,  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  in  a  publication  entitled 
"A  Speech  Intended  to  be  Spoken,"  dated  November 
23d,  1803,  says : — 

"  If  any  one  should  contend  that  this  is  not  the  time 
for  government  to  make  concessions  to  Ireland,  I  wish 
him  to  consider  whether  there  is  any  time  in  which  it  is 
improper  for  either  individuals  or  nations  to  do  justice; 
any  season  improper  for  extinguishing  animosity  ;  any 
occasion  more  suitable  than  the  present  for  putting  an 
end  to  heartburninsfs  and  internal  discontent." 

"  It  has  been  asserted,"  says  Archdeacon  Paley,  "that 
discordancy  of  religions  is  enough  to  render  men  unfit 
to  act  together  in  public  stations.  But  upon  what  argu- 
ment or  upon  what  experience  is  this  assertion  founded  ? 
I  perceive  no  reason  why  men  of  different  religious 
persuas:.ons  may  not  sit  upon  the  same  bench,  deliberate 
in  the  same  council,  or  fight  in  the  same  ranks,  as  well  as 
men  of  various  or  opposite  opinions  upon  any  contro- 
verted topic  of  natural  philosophy,  history,  or  ethics. 

"  Why  should  not  the  legislator  direct  his  text  against 
political  principles  which  he  wishes  to  exclude,  rather 
than  encounter  them  through  the  medium  of  religioui 
tenets?  Why  should  a  man,  for  example,  be  required  tc 
renounce  Transubstantiation  before  he  is  admitted  to  an 
office  in  the  state,  when  it  might  seem  to  be  suflficient 
that  he  abjures  the  Pretender?" 

'*  Vrhen,  in  addition  to  these  great  authorities,  the 
names  of  Wyndham,  Sheridan,  Burke,  Pitt  and  Fox  can  be 
added  as  strenuous  advocates  for  the  repeal  of  these 
penal  laws,  can  any  man  be  warranted  in  entertaining  ? 
doubt  of  the  policy  of  admitting  the  Catholic  subjects  of 
the  je  countries  into  a  full  enjoyment  of  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  constitution?  Can  any  man  be  justified 
in  believing  that  the  constitution  will  be  changed,  or  that 
the  Protestant  Church  and  Protestant  succession  to  the 
crown  will  be  exposed  to  danger  ?    The  constitution  rests 


In  the  Reign  of  George  III, 


6.39 


upon  the  foundation  of  every  subject  of  the  ^\ng  having 
an  interest  in  protecting  it,  in  every  subject  being  in 
possession  of  full  security  for  his  person,  and  his  property 
and  his  liberty,  against  all  invasions,  whether  of  arbitrary 
power  or  popular  outrage.  This  principle  oi  universal 
admission  into  the  rights  of  the  constitution  makes  the 
principle  of  its  preservation  universal ;  and  every  excep- 
tion of  it,  in  place  of  securing  a  safeguard,  creates  a  real 
danger.  And  for  any  man  at  this  time  gravely  to  say 
that  the  oath  of  supremacy,  the  declaration  against  Tran- 
substantiation  and  the  sacramental  test,  are  the  bulwarks 
of  the  constitution,  is  a  matter  to  excite  surprise,  and  can 
only  be  accounted  for,  either  by  an  unpardonable  igno- 
rance of  those  things  that  every  one  may  easily  learn, 
or  by  the  sinister  influence  of  some  private  interest."  * 


*  ParaelL 


APPENDIX 

TO 

PARNELL'S  HISTORY 

OF  THE 

PENAL  LAWS. 


NOTE  A. 

The  following  extract  is  taken  from 
•*  Tracts  on  tlje  Popery  Li*.w3  "  in  the 
ninth  volume  of  Mr.  B>'rke's  works, 
which  was  first  puhU-^hed  in  1812, 
four  years  after  the  fi^»\.  edition  of  this 
history  v/as  published.  It  is  here  in- 
serted as  be^'ng  a  most  conclusive 
corroboration  of  the  opinion  given 
in  his  b'story  upon  the  Treaty  of 
Limeri'^k ;  and  as  also  being  an  un- 
answ^.rable  refutation  of  the  arguments 
contained  in  the  pamphlets  of  the  late 
Arthur  Browne,  Esq.,  and  Doctor 
Duigenan: — 

"  It  will  now  be  seen  that,  even  if 
tlicse  Popery  laws  could  be  supposed 
agreeable  to  those  of  nature  in  these 
particulars,  on  another  and  almost  as 
strong  a  principle  they  are  yet  unjust, 
as  being  contrary  to  positive  compact, 
and  the  public  faith  most  solemnly 
piiglited.  On  the  surrender  of  Lime- 
rick, and  some  other  Irish  garrisons, 
in  the  war  of  the  revolution,  the  lords- 


justices  of  Ireland,  and  the  cqm* 
mander-in-chief  of  the  king's  forces, 
signed  a  capitulation  with  the  Irish, 
which  was  afterward  ratified  by  tha 
king  himself,  by  Inspcximus,  under 
the  great  seal  of  England.  It  contains 
some  public  articles  relative  to  the 
whole  body  of  the  Roman  Catholics 
in  that  kingdom,  and  some  with  regard 
to  the  security  of  the  greater  part  of 
the  inhab.'tonts  of  five  counties:  what 
the  latter  were,  or  in  what  manner 
they  were  observed,  is  at  this  day  of 
much  less  public  concern.  The  former 
are  two,  the  first  and  ninth.  The 
first  is  of  this  tenor  :  *  The  Roman 
Catholics  of  this  kingdom  ( Ireland  ) 
shall  enjoy  such  privileges,  in  the  ex- 
ercise of  their  religion,  as  are  consist- 
ent with  the  laws  of  Ireland,  or  as 
they  did  enjoy  in  the  reign  of  King 
Charles  II ;  and  their  majesties,  as 
soon  as  their  affairs  will  permit  them 
to  summon  a  parliament  in  ih:s  king- 
dom, will  endeavor  to  [jrocure  ihc 
said  Roman  Catholics  &uc!i  furi'it-r 


G42 


Appendix. 


security  ia  that  particular  as  may  pre- 
serve them  from  any  disturbance  on 
account  of  their  rehgion.  The  ninth 
article  is  to  this  effect  •  '  The  oath  to 
be  administered  to  such  Roman  Cath- 
olics as  submit  to  their  majesties' 
government  shall  be  the  oaih  afore- 
said, and  no  other,  viz. :  the  oath  of 
allegiance  made  by  act  of  parliament 
in  England,  in  the  first  year  of  their 
majesties,  as  required  by  the  second 
of  the  Articles  of  Limerick.'  Com- 
pare this  latter  article  with  the  penal 
laws,  as  they  are  stated  in  the  second 
chapter,  and  judge  whether  they  seem 
to  be  the  public  acts  of  the  same 
power,  and  observe  whether  other 
oaths  are  tendered  to  them,  and  under 
wJiat  penalties. 

"Compare  the  former  with  the 
same  laws,  from  the  beginning  to  the 
end,  and  judge  whether  the  Roman 
Ca;holics  have  been  preserved,  agree- 
ably to  the  sense  of  the  article,  from 
any  disturbance  upon  account  of  their 
religion ;  or,  rather,  whether  on  that 
account  there  is  a  single  right  of 
nature,  or  benefit  of  society,  which 
has  not  been  either  totally  taken 
away,  or  considerably  impaired. 

But  it  is  said  that  the  legislature 
was  not  bound  by  lliis  article,  as  it 
has  never  been  ratified  in  parliament. 
I  do  admit  that  it  never  Imd  that  sanc- 
tion, and  that  the  parliament  was 
under  no  obligation  to  ratify  these 
articles  by  any  express  act  ol  theirs, 
liut  still  I  am  at  a  loss  how  they  came 
to  be  the  less  valid,  on  the  principles 
of  our  constitution,  by  being  with- 
out that  sanction.  They  certainly 
bound  the  king  and  his  successors. 
The  words  of  il»e  article  do  this,  or 
they  do  noihmg  ;  and  so  far  as  the 
crown  had  a  share  in  passing  those 
acts,  the  public  foiih  was  unquestion- 


ably broken.  But  the  constitution 
will  warrant  us  in  going  a  great  deal 
further,  and  in  affirming  that  a  treaty 
executed  by  the  crown,  and  contra- 
dictory of  no  preceding  law,  is  full 
as  binding  on  the  whole  body  of  the 
nation  as  if  it  had  twenty  times  re- 
ceived the  sanction  of  parliament; 
because,  the  very  same  constitution 
which  has  given  to  the  houses  of 
parliament  their  definite  authority, 
has  also  left  in  the  crown  the  trust 
of  making  peace,  as  a  consequence, 
and  much  the  best  consequence,  of 
the  prerogative  of  making  war.  \i 
the  peace  was  ill-made,  my  Lord  Gal- 
way,  Coningsby  and  Porter,  who 
signed  it,  were  responsible  because 
they  were  subject  to  the  community. 
But  its  own  contracts  are  now  subject 
to  it.  It  is  subject  to  tiiera,  and  the 
compact  of  the  king  acting  constitu- 
tionally was  the  compact  of  the 
nation. 

'*  Observe  what  monstrous  conse- 
quences would  result  from  a  contrary 
position.  A  foreign  enemy  has  en- 
tered, or  a  strong  domestic  one  has 
arisen  in  the  nation.  In  such  events 
the  circumstances  may  be,  and  often 
have  been,  such  that  a  parliament 
cannot  siL  This  was  precisely  the 
case  in  that  rebellion  of  Ireland.  It 
will  be  admitted,  also,  that  their 
power  may  be  so  great  as  to  make  it 
very  prudent  to  treat  with  them,  iu 
order  to  save  effusion  of  blood ;  per- 
haps, to  save  the  nation.  Now,  could 
such  a  treaty  be  at  ail  made,  if  your 
enemies,  or  rebels,  were  fully  per- 
suaded that,  in  these  times  of  con- 
fusion, there  was  no  authority  in  tlie 
State  which  could  hold  out  to  them 
an  inviolable  pledge  for  their  future 
secunty :  but  that  there  lurked  in  the 
constituucn   a  dormant  but  irresist- 


Appendix. 


G43 


Ible  power,  vhich  wcmld  not  *.hink 
itself  bound  by  the  ordinary  subsist- 
ing and  contracting  authority,  but 
might  rescind  its  acts  and  obligations 
at  pleasure? 

"  This  would  be  a  doctrine  made  to 
perpetuate  and  exasperate  war  ;  and, 
on  that  principle,  it  directly  impugns 
the  laws  of  nations,  which  are  built 
upon  this  principle,  that  war  should 
be  softened  as  much  as  possible,  and 
that  it  should  cease  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble between  contending  parties  and 
communities.    The  king  has  a  power 
to  pardon  individuals.    If  the  king 
holds  out  his  faith  to  a  robber  to 
come  in  on  a  promise  of  pardon  of 
life  and  estate,  and,  in  all  respects,  of 
a  full  idemnity,  shall  the  parliament 
say  that  he  mnst,  nevertheless,  be 
executed;    th-.t  his  estate  must  be 
forfeited,  or  that  he  shall  be  abridged 
of  any  of  the  privileges  which  he 
•   before  held  as  a  subject?  Nobody 
will  affirm  it.    In  such  a  case,  the 
breach  of  faith  would  not  only  be  on 
the  part  of  the  king  who  assented 
to  such  an  act,  but  on  the  part  of  the 
parliament  who  made  it.    As  the  king 
represents  the  whole  contracting  ca- 
pacity of  the  nation,  so  far  as  his 
prerogative  (unlimited,  as  1  said  be- 
fore, by  any  precedent  law)  can  ex- 
tend, he  acts  as  the  national  procu- 
rator on  all  sucli  occasions.    What  is 
true  of  one  robber  or  rebel  is  as  true, 
and  it  is  a  much  more  important  truth, 
of  one  hundred  thousand.    To  urge 
tliis  part  (.  f  the  argument  further  is,  I 
fear,  not  necessary,  for  two  reasons : 
First,  that  it  seems  tolerably  evident 
in  itself;  and,  next,  that  there  is  but 
too  much  ground  to  apprehend  that 
the  actual  ratification  of  parliament 
would,  in  the  then  temper  of  parties, 
have  proved  but  a  very  slight  and 


trivial  security.  Of  tl.is  theie  is  a  very 
strong  example  in  the  history  of  those 
very  articles.*  For,  though  the  parlia- 
ment omitted,  in  the  reign  of  King 
William,  to  ratify  the  first  and  most 
general  of  them,  they  did  actually  con- 
firm the  second  and  more  limited, — 
that  which  related  to  the  security  of 
the  inhabitants  of  those  five  counties 
which  were  in  arms  when  the  treaty 
was  made."* 

NOTE  B. 

Proportion  of  Catholics  to 
Protestants. 

The  following  statement  has  been 
made  f«"om  materials,  the  result  of 
actual  enumeration,  and  contained  in 
Mr.  Newenham's  View  of  Ireland," 
published  in  1809. 


Catholics  to  Protestants,  in 

the   diocese    of  Ross, 

72,265  to  2,292 

to 

I 

Ditto,  in  eight  parishes  of  the 

diocese  of  Cork,  houses 

II 

to 

I 

Ditto,  in  the  City  of  Cork, 

numbers       .       _  _ 

7 

to 

a 

Ditto,  in  the  parish  of  Ardagh, 

houses  -       -       -  - 

70 

to 

I 

Ditto,  in  the  town  of  Clonmel, 

houses         .       .  - 

3 

to 

I 

Ditto,  in  the  parish  of  Kil- 

larney        .       .  - 

35 

to 

I 

Ditto, in  the  parish  of  Blarney, 

houses         -       .  - 

19 

to 

I 

Ditto,  in  the  parish  of  Cove, 

houses  - 

20 

to 

1 

Ditto,in  eleven  parishes  of  the 

diocese  of  Tuam,  num- 

bers    .       -       .  - 

54 

to 

I 

Ditto,  in  the  town  of  Graigna- 

mana,  houses 

IOC 

to 

I 

Catholics  to  Protestants  in  the 

parish  of  Aries,  families 

100 

to 

I 

*  Uurk.«'>  Wurks,         ix,  \k  lul. 


GU 


Appendix, 


D'.tto,  in  the  parish  of  Tul- 
low,  the  most  Protestant 
parish  in  the  diocese  of 
Leighlin,       -  -  12  to  I 

No  Protestants  in  the  following 
parishes  : — 

Kilcummin,    St.  Mullin's,  Allen, 
Kilbegnot,  Newport,  Abbey feale. 

Only  eleven  Protestant  families  in 
the  following  parishes  : — * 

Castle  Blakeny,  Killyglass,  Shankill 
and  Lusk. 

Catholics  to  Protestants  in 

the  county  of  Kilkenny  t  17  to  I 
Ditto,  in  the  counties  of  Clare, 
Kerry,  Limerick,  Water- 
ford,     Leitrim,  Mayo, 
Roscommon,  according 
to  general  opinion      -     50  to  I 
Ditto,  in  the  counties  of  Kil- 
dare,  Meath,  West  Meath, 
Gal  way,  Sligo,  according 
to  general  opinion  -       -  20  to  I 
In  the  counties   of  Antrim  and 
Dunn  the  two  sects  are  supposed  to 
be  equal. 

The  Catholics  are  to  the  Protes- 
tants, according  to  general  opinion, 
in  the  county  of  Londonderry,  as 
two  to  one ;  in  the  counties  of 
.  Armagh  and  Fermanagh,  as  three  to 
one;  in  the  other  counties  of  Ulster, 
*  as  four  and  five  to  one. 

These  statements  are  inserted,  not 
f:r  the  purpose  of  drawing  an  infer- 
ence making  the  Catholics  to  bear  a 
very  high  ratio  to  the  Protestants,  but 
to  show  that  there  can  be  nothing 
very  extravagant,  or  very  far  from 
the  truth,  in  assuming  as  the  data 
of  the  following  calculation  that,  in 
three  provinces  of  Leinster,  Munster 

"  See  Newenbam'f  "  View  of  Ireland,"  Ap.,  p. 
nxrlU. 
t  8*e  lIciM'i  Stirray. 


and  Connaught,  the  Catholics  are  Ic 
the  Protestants  as  twelve  to  one;  and 
that,  in  the  province  of  Ulster,  the 
Catholics  are  to  the  Protestants  as 
three  to  two. 

Taking,  then,  the  parliamentary 
returns  as  the  basis  of  the  calculation 
in  these  proportions, — 
It  appears    from  these, 
that  the  population  of 
the    three  provinces 
amounts  to  4,803,333 
(p.    viij,    at  twelve 
Catholics  to  one  Pro- 
testant; -ff  of  this  num- 
ber are  Catholics,  viz. :  4,433,84 ' 
It  also  appears  that  the 
population  of  Ulster 
amounts  to  1,998,494 
(p.  vii),  at  three  Cath- 
olics to  two  Protes- 
tants ;  I  of  this  number 
are  Catholics,  viz.    -  1,199,094 
Thus  it  appears  that  the 
total  number  of  Cath- 
olics, out  of  a  popula- 
tion of  6,801,821,  is  -  5,632,938 
According  to  the  above 
numbers  and  propor- 
tions, the  Protestants 
in  three  provinces  are 
+3  of  4,803.333.  viz.  -  369,487 
Ditto,    in    Ulster,  \  of 

1,998,494,  viz.:  -      -  799.396 
Thus  it  appears  that  the 
total  number  of  Pro- 
testants,    out    ot  a 
population  of  6,801  - 
821,  is     -      .      -  I,i68,88j 
These  gross  relative  numbers  make 
the  ratio  of  Catholics  to  Protestants 
very  nearly  indeed  as  five  to  one. 

Supposing,  then,  the  number  of  both 
Catholics  and  Protestants  to  have 
gone  on  increasmg  in  this  ratio  since 


Appendix. 


C45 


1821,  the  number  of  Catholics  to 
Protestatits,  out  of  the  present 
population  of  7,70o,(XX),  will  be  as 
five  to  one,  and  in  whole  numbers  as 
6,416,667,  to  1,283,333. 

If  the  population  actually  is  now 
at  least  8,000,000,  which  abundant 
reason  exists  to  show  to  be  the  case, 
then  the  Catholics  will  be  to  the  Pro- 
testants according  to  the  ratio  of  five 
to  one,  in  number  6,666,666  to  1,333, 

333- 

The  general  rule  in  respect  of  the 
rate  at  which  the  population  of  a 
country  hicreases,  a  rule  founded  upon 
constant  and  uniform  facts,  is,  that 
"population,  when  unchecked,  goes 
on  doubling  itself  every  twenty-five 
years,  or  increases  in  a  geometrical 
ratio."  (Malthus'  Essay,  vol.  I,  p.  8.) 

This  has  taken  place  for  about  a 
century  and  a  half,  successively,  in 
•North  America;  and  as  the  means  of 
subsistence  in  Ireland  are  more  ample, 
the  manners  of  the  people  more 
pure,  and  the  checks  to  early  marriages 
fewer  than  in  any  of  the  modern  states 
of  Europe,  there  exists  no  reason  to 
doubt  that  the  population  of  Ireland 
is  now  increasing  at  the  rate  of  doub- 
ling itself  in  twenty-five  years. 
Although  the  numbers  computed  by 
Dr.  Beaufort,  antl  those  returned  by 
the  census  of  1821,  may,  so  far  as 
they  are  worth  anything,  show  a  slower 
rate  of  increase,  the  difference  may  be 
explained,  first,  by  the  acknowledged 
fact  that  the  census  of  1821  is  ex- 
ceedingly incorrect;  secondly,  by 
mentioning  another  fact,  that  the 
circumstances  of  the  last  fifteen  years 
have  been  much  more  favorable  to 
a  rapid  increase  of  population,  than 
those  were  of  the  preceding  fifteen 


If  a  comparison  could  be  made  of 
the  births  and  burials  of  the  whole 
kingdom,  at  different  periods,  it 
would  decide  the  question,  for  then 
it  would  be  necessary  only  to  adopt 
the  rule  laid  down  by  Dr.  Price  (vol. 
ii,  p.  51),  to  find  out  the  actual  rate 
of  increase.  He  says:  "The  rate  of 
increase,  supposing  the  procreative 
powers  the  same,  depends  upon  two 
causes:  *The  encouragement  to  mar- 
riage, and  the  expectation  of  a  child 
just  born.' "  When  one  of  tiiese 
is  given,  the  increase  will  be  always 
in  proportion  to  the  other  ;  that  is, 
as  much  greater  or  less  as  the  ratio 
is  of  the  numbers  who  reach  maturity, 
and  of  those  who  marry,  to  the 
number  born,  so  much  quicker  or 
slower  will  be  the  increase.  Let  us 
suppose  the  operation  of  tliese  causes 
such  as  to  produce  an  annual  excess 
of  the  births  above  the  burials,  equal 
to  a  thirty-sixth  part  of  the  whole 
number  of  inhabitants.  It  may  seeia 
to  follow  from  hence  that  the  in- 
habitants would  double  their  own 
number  in  thirty-six  years,  and  thus 
some  have  calculated.  But  the  truth 
is,  that  they  would  double  their  own 
number  in  much  less  time. 

Every  addition  to  the  number  of 
inhabitants  from  the  births  produces 
a  proportionably  greater  number  of 
births,  and  a  greater  excess  of  thes« 
above  the  burials;  and,  if  we  suppose 
the  excess  to  increase  annually  at  the 
same  rate  with  the  inhabitants,  or  so 
as  to  preserve  the  ratio  of  it  to  the 
number  of  inhabitants  always  the 
same,  the  period  of  doubling  will  be 
twenty-five  years.* 

*  For  iba  formula  of  ninkinK  Ui«  calculaiion,  Ma 
nou^  ToL  U,     U,  of  I>r.  i  rioa  on  "  AiiiiuiUti*-" 


646 


Appendix, 


NOTE  C. 

["The  Principles  of  Roman  Cath- 
olics," from  the  prayer-book  which  is 
in  general  use  amongst  the  Catholics 
of  Ireland,  and  which  was  published 
by  Dr.  Coppinger,  Titular  Bishop  of 
Cloyne.] 

Section  J, 

1.  Tlie  fruition  of  God  and  the  re- 
mission of  sin  are  not  attainable  by 
rr.-'.n,  otherwise  than  in  and  by  the 
merits  of  Jesus  Christ,  who  gratui- 
loasly  purchased  them  for  us. 

,1.  These  merits  of  Christ  arc  not 
applied  to  us,  otherwise  than  by  a 
right  faith  in  Him. 

3.  This  faith  is  but  one,  entire 
and  conformable  to  its  object,  which 
is  divine  revelation,  and  to  which 
faith  gives  an  undoubting  assenL 

4.  This  revelation  contains  many 
mysteries  transcending  the  natural 
reach  of  human  understanding:  where- 
fore, 

5.  It  becomes  the  Divine  wisdom 
and  goodness  to  provide  some  way  or 
means  whereby  man  might  arrive  at 
the  knowledge  of  these  mysteries, — 
means  visible  and  apparent  to  all ; 
means  proportioned  to  the  capacities 
of  all  ;  means  sure  and  certain  to  all. 

6.  This  way  or  means  is  not  the 
reading  of  the  Scripture,  interpreted 
accoiding  to  the  private  reason  or 
judgn"kent  of  each  particular  person  or 
nation ;  but, 

7.  It  is  an  attention  and  submission 
to  the  voice  of  the  Catholic,  or  Univer- 
jial,  Church,  established  hy  Christ  for 
the  instruction  of  all,  spread  for  that 
end  through  all  nations,  and  visibly 
continued  in  the  succession  of  pastors 
and  people  through  all  ages.  From 
Uiis  Church,  guided  in  truth,  and 


secured  from  error  in  matters  of  faith< 
by  the  promised  assistance  of  the 
Holy  Ghost,  every  one  may  learn  the 
right  sense  of  the  Scriptures,  and 
such  Christian  mysteries  and  duties 
as  are  necessary  to  salvation. 

8.  This  Church,  thus  established, 
thus  spread,  thus  continued,  thus 
guided  in  one  uniform  faith  and  sub- 
ordination of  government,  is  that  which 
is  termed  the  Roman  Catholic  Church, 
the  qualities  just  mentioned,  unity, 
indeficiency,  visibility,  succession,  and 
universality,  being  evidently  applica- 
ble to  her. 

9.  It  is  from  the  testimony  and 
authority  of  this  Church  that  we  re- 
ceive the  Scriptures,  and  believe  them 
to  be  the  word  of  God;  and  as  she 
can  assuredly  tell  us  what  particular 
book  is  the  word  of  God,  so  can  she, 
*vith  the  like  assurance,  tell  us  also 
the  true  sense  and  meaning  of  it 
in  controverted  pohits  of  faith  ;  the 
same  Spirit  that  wrote  the  Scriptures, 
directs  her  to  understand  both  them 
and  all  matters  necessary  to  salva- 
tion.   From  these  grounds  it  follows, 

10.  Only  truths  revealed  byAlmight) 
God,  and  proposed  by  the  Church  to 
be  believed  as  such,  are  and  ought 
to  be  esteemed  articles  of  Catholic 
faith. 

11.  As  an  obstinate  separation  from 
the  unity  of  the  Church  in  known  mat- 
ters of  fnith  is  heresy,  so  a  wilful 
separation  from  the  visible  unity  of  the 
same  Church  in  matters  of  subordina- 
tion and  government  is  schism. 

12.  The  Church  proposes  unto 
us  matters  of  faith,  first  and  chiefly 
by  the  Holy  Scripture,  in  points 
plain  ai.d  intelligible  in  it ;  secondly, 

I  by  definitions  of  General  Councils,  in 
1  points  not  sufficiently  plain  in  Scrip 


Appendix, 


647 


tare;  iIjirJl\,  by  apostolical  traditions 
derived  from  Christ  and  His  apostles 
to  all  succeeding  ages. 

Section  II, 

1.  The  pastors  of  the  Churcn,  who 
are  the  body  representative,  either  dis- 
persed, or  convened  in  council,  have 
received  no  commission  from  Christ 
to  frame  new  articles  of  faith,  these 
being  solely  divine  revelation,  but 
only  to  explain  and  to  ascertain  to 
us  what  anciently  was  and  is  received 
and  retained  as  of  faith  in  the  Church, 
when  debates  and  controversies  arise 
about  them.  These  definitions  in  mat- 
ters of  faith  only,  and  pr^osed  as 
such,  oblige  all  the  faitiiful  to  an 
interior  assent ;  but, 

2.  It  is  no  ariicle  of  faith  thai  the 
Church  cannot  err  either  in  matters 
of  fact,  or  in  matters  of  speculation 
or  civil  policy,  depending  on  mere 
human  reason,  these  not  being  divine 
revelations  deposited  in  the  Catholic 
Church;  hence  is  reduced, 

3.  If  a  General  Council,  much  less 
a  Papal  Consistory,  should  presume 
to  depose  a  king,  and  to  absolve  his 
subjects  from  their  allegiance,  no 
Catholic  could  be  bound  to  submit  to 
such  a  decree  ;  hence  it  follows  that, 

4-  The  subjects  of  the  King  of 
England  lawfully  may,  without  the 
least  breach  of  any  Catholic  principle, 
renounce,  upon  oath,  the  teaching  or 
practising  the  doctrine  of  deposing 
Vings  excommunicated  for  heresy, 
I  y  any  authority  whatsoever,  as  re- 
pugnant to  the  fundamental  laws  of 
the  nation,  as  injurious  to  sovereign 
power,  and  as  destructive  to  peace 
and  government. 

5.  Catholics  believe  that  the  Bishop 
Rome,  successor  to  St.  Peter,  is 


at  the  head  of  the  whole  Caiiiolic 
Church,  in  which  sense  this  Church 
may,  therefore,  be  styled  Roman  Cath- 
olic, Ijecause  an  universal  body  under 
one  visible  head;  nevertheless, 

6.  It  is  no  matter  of  faith  to 
believe  that  the  Pope  is  in  him-elf 
infallible,  separated  from  the  Church, 
even  in  expounding  the  faith;  by 
consequence,  Papal  definitions  or  de- 
crees, taken  exclusively  from  a  General 
Council,  or  universal  acceptance  of  the 
Church,  oblige  none,  under  the  pain 
of  heresy,  to  an  interior  assent. 

7.  Nor  do  Catholics,  as  Catholics, 
believe  that  the  Pope  has  any  direct 
or  indirect  authority  over  the  temporal 
power  and  jurisdiction  of  princes. 
Hence,  if  the  Pope  should  pietend 
to  absolve  or  dispense  with  his 
majesty's  subjects  from  their  allegi- 
ance, on  account  of  heresy  or  schism, 
such  disf)ensati()n  would  be  vair- 
and  null;  and  all  Catholic  subjects 
notwithstanding  such  dispensation  cr 
absolution,  would  be  still  bound  in 
conscience  to  defend  their  king  and 
country,  at  the  hazard  of  their  livis 
and  fortunes  (as  far  as  Protestants 
would  be  bound),  even  against  the 
Pope  himself,  should  he  invade  the 
nation. 

8.  As  for  the  problematical  dis- 
putes or  errors  of  particular  divines, 
in  this  or  any  other  matter  whatso- 
ever, we  are  in  no  wise  respwnsible 
for  them;  nor  are  Catholics,  as  such, 
justly  punishable  on  their  account; 
but, 

9.  As  for  the  king-kiliing  doctnne, 
or  murder  of  princes  excommunicated 
for  heresy,  it  is  universally  admitted 
in  the  Catholic  Church,  and  expressly 
so  declared  in  the  Council  of  Con- 
stance, that  such  doctrine  is  impiou* 


648 


Appendix, 


and  execrable,  being  contrary  to  the 
known  laws  of  God  and  nature. 

10.  Personal  misdemeanors,  of  what 
nature  soever,  ought  not  to  be  imputed 
to  the  body  of  Catholics,  when  not 
justifiable  by  the  tenets  of  their  faith 
and  doctrine ;  for  which  reason,  though 
the  stories  of  the  Irish  cruelties  or 
po\*der-plot  had  been  exactly  true 
(which  yet,  for  the  most  part,  are 
notoriously  misrelated),  nevertheless 
Catholics,  as  such,  ought  not  to  suffer 
for  such  offences  any  more  than  the 
eleven  apostles  ought  to  have  suffered 
for  the  treacht~Y  of  Judas. 

11.  It  is  a  r  ndamental  truth  in 
our  religion  that  no  TX)wer  on  earth 
can  license  men  to  lie,  to  forswear 
or  perjure  themselves,  to  massacre 
their  neighbors,  to  destroy  their 
native  country,  on  pretence  of  pro- 
moting the  Catholic  cause  or  religion. 
Furthermore,  all  pardons  or  dispensa- 
tions granted,  or  pretended  to  be 
granted,  in  order  to  accomplish  any 
such  ends  or  designs,  could  have 
no  other  validity  or  effect  than  to 
add  sacrilege  and  blasphemy  to  the 
above-mentioned  crimes. 

12.  The  doctrine  of  equivocation, 
or  mental  reservation,  however  wrong- 
fully imputed  to  the  Catholic  rehg- 
ion,  was  never  taught  or  approved 
by  the  Church  as  any  part  of  her 
belief;  on  the  contrary,  simplicity  and 
godly  sincerity  are  constantly  in- 
culcated by  her  as  truly  Christian 
virtues,  necessary  to  the  conservation 
of  justice,  truth,  and  common  security. 

Section  III. 

I.  Every  Catliolic  believes  that 
when  a  sinner  rei)ents  of  his  sins 
from  the  bottom  of  his  heart,  and 
acknowledcres  his  transfrressions  to 


God  and  His  ministers,  the  dispensers 
of  the  mysteries  of  Christ  resolving 
to  turn  from  his  e\'il  wav?,  and  bring 
forth  fruits  worthy  of  repentance, 
there  is  then,  and  not  othci  wise,  any 
authority  left  by  Ctrist  to  absolve 
such  a  penitent  sinner  frcra  his  fins, 
which  authority  Christ  gave  to  II's 
apostles  and  their  successors,  the 
bishops  and  priests  of  His  Church,  in 
these  words,  when  He  said :  *'  Receive 
ye  the  Holy  Ghost ;  whose  sins  yoi 
shall  forgive,  they  are  forgiven  unto 
them." 

2.  Thourrh  no  creature  whatsoever 
can  make  condign  satisfaction,  either 
for  the  guilt  of  sin  or  the  pain 
eternal  due  to  it,  this  satisfaction 
being  proper  to  Christ  our  Saviour 
only,  yet  penitent  sinners,  redeemed 
by  Christ,  may,  as  members  of  Christ, 
in  some  measure  satisfy  by  prayer, 
fasting,  almsdeeds,  and  other  works 
of  piety,  for  temporal  pain,  which,  in 
the  order  of  Di\'ine  justice,  sometimes 
remains  due,  after  the  guilt  of  sin 
and  pain  eternal  have  been  remitted- 
Such  penitential  works  are,  notwith- 
standing, not  otherwise  satisfactory 
than  as  joined  and  applied  to  that 
I  satisfaction  which  Jesus  made  upon 
'  the  cross,  and  in  virtue  of  which  all  our 
good  works  find  a  grateful  acceptance 
in  the  sight  of  God. 
!  3.  The  guilt  of  sin,  or  pain  eternal 
;  due  to  it,  is  never  remitted  by  what 
Catholics  call  indulgences,  but  only 
:  such  temporal  punishments  as  remain 
due  after  the  guilt  is  remitted,  those 
indulgences  being  nothing  else  than 
a  mitigation  or  relaxation  of  canonical 
penances  enjoined  by  the  pastors 
of  the  Church  on  penitent  sinners, 
according  to  their  several  degrees  of 
demerit  ;  and  if  abuses  and  mistakes 


Appendix. 


ha\'e  been  someiimes  committed, 
either  in  point  of  granting  or  gaining 
indulgences,  through  the  remissness 
or  ignorance  of  particular  persons, 
contrary  to  the  ancient  customs  and 
discipline  of  the  Church,  such  abuses 
or  mistakes  cannot  reasonably  be 
charged  on  the  Church,  or.  rendered 
matters  of  derision,  in  prejudice  to 
her  faith  and  discipline. 

4.  Catholics  hold  there  is  a  purga- 
tory, that  is  to  say,  a  place  or  state 
where  souls  departing  this  life,  with 
r-emission  of  their  sins  as  to  the  eternal 
guilt  or  pain,  but  yet  obnoxious  to 
some  temporal  punishment  still  re- 
maining due,  or  not  perfectly  freed 
from  the  blemish  of  some  defects  or 
deordimations,  are  purged  before  their 
admittance  into  heaven,  where  nothing 
that  is  defiled  can  enter. 

5.  Catholics  also  hold  that  such 
souls  so  detained  in  purgatory,  being 
the  living  members  of  Jesus  Christ, 
are  relieved  by  the  prayers  and  suf- 
frages of  their  fellow-members  here  On 
earth  ;  but  where  this  placQ  is,  or  of 
what  nature  or  quality  the  pains  are, 
how  long  souls  may  be  there  detained, 
in  what  manner  the  suffrages  made  in 
their  behalf  applied,  whether  by  way 
of  satisfaction  or  intercession,  etc.,  are 
questions  superfluous  and  imperti- 
nent as  to  faith. 

6.  No  man,  though  just,  can  merit 
either  an  increase  of  sanctity  in  this 
life,  or  eternal  glory  in  the  next, 
independently  of  the  merits  and  pas- 
sion of  Christ  Jesus  ;  but  the  good 
works  of  a  just  man,  proceeding  from 
grace  and  charity,  are  so  far  accept- 
able to  God  as  to  be,  through  His 
goodness  and  sacred  promises,  truly 
meritorious  of  eternal  life. 

7.  It  is  an  article  of  the  Catholic 


,  faith  that,  in  the  most  holy  sacr.iment 
j  of  the  Eucharist,  there  is  truly  and 
really  contained  the  body  of  Christ, 
which  was  delivered  for  us,  -iJid  His 
blood,  which  was  shed  for  the  remis- 
sion of  sins;  the  substance  of  bread 
and  wine  being,  by  the  power  of 
Christ,  changed  into  the  substance 
of  His  blessed  body  and  blood,  the 
species  or  appearances  of  bread  and 
wine  still  remaining;  but, 

8.  Christ  is  not  present  in  this 
sacrament  according  to  His  natural 
way  of  existence,  that  is,  with  exten- 
sion of  parts,  etc.,  but  in  a  super- 
natural manner,  one  and  the  same  in 
many  places;  His  presence,  therefore, 
is  real  and  substantial,  but  sacra- 
mental, not  exposed  to  the  external 
senses,  or  obnoxious  to  corporal  con- 
tingencies. 

9.  Neither  is  the  body  of  Christ  in 
this  holy  sacrament  separated  from 
His  blood,  or  His  blood  from  His  body, 
or  either  of  them  disunited  from  His 
soul  and  divinity,  but  all  and  whole 
living  Jesus  is  entirely  contained  un- 
der each  species ;  so  that  whosoever 
receives  under  one  kind  is  truly  par- 
taker of  the  whole  sacrament,  and  no- 
wise deprived  either  of  the  kody  or 
blood  of  Christ.    True  it  is, 

10.  Our  Saviour  Jesus  Christ  left 
unto  us  His  body  and  blood  under  two 
distinct  species  or  kinds,  in  the  aoing 
of  which.  He  instituted  not  only  a 
sacrament,  but  also  a  sacrifice, — a  com- 
memorative sacrifice  distinctly  show- 
ing His  death  and  bloody  passion 
until  He  come;  for,  as  the  sacrifice  of 
the  cross  was  performed  by  a  distinct 
effusion  of  blood,  so  is  that  sacrifice 
commemorated  in  that  of  the  altar 
by  a  distinction  of  the  symbols.  Jesus, 
therefore,  is  here  given  not  only  to 


650 


Appendix. 


but  for  us,  i:r.d  ihe  Clmich  is  thereby 
r:u  iched  with  a  true,  proper  and  pro- 
pitiatory sacrifke,  usually  termed  the 
Mass. 

II.  Catholics  renounce  all  divine 
worship  and  adoration  of  images  or 
pictures.  God  alone  we  worship  and 
adore;  nevertheless,  we  place  pictures 
in  churches,  to  reduce  our  wandering 
thoughts,  and  enliven  our  memories 
toward  heavenly  things.  Further, 
we  allow  a  certain  honor  to  be 
shown  to  the  images  of  Christ  and 
His  saints  beyond  what  is  due  to 
every  profane  figure  ;  not  that  we 
believe  any  divinity  or  virtue  to  reside 
in  them,  for  which  they  ought  to  be 
honored,  but  because  the  honor 
given  to  pictures  is  referred  to  the 
prototype  or  thing  represented.  In 
like  manner, 

12.  There  is  a  kind  of  honor  and 
respect  due  to  the  Bible,  to  the  cross, 
to  the  name  of  Jesus,  to  churches,  to 
the  sacraments,  etc.,  as  things  peculi- 
arly appertaining  to  God;  also  to  the 
glorious  saints  in  heaven,  as  the 
friends  of  God ; and  to  kings,  mcjgis- 
trates  and  superiors  on  earth,  to 
whom  honor  is  due,  honor  may  be 
given,  without  any  derogation  to  the 


majesty  of  God,  or  that  divine  wor- 
ship which  is  appropriate  to  Him. 
Moreover, 

13.  Catholics  believe  that  the  blessed 
saints  in  heaven,  replenished  with 
charity,  pray  for  us,  their  fellow-mem- 
bers here  on  earth;  that  they  rejoice 
at  our  conversion ;  that,  seeing  God, 
they  see  and  know  Him  in  all  things 
suitable  to  their  happy  state.  But  God 
may  be  inclined  to  hear  their  requests 
made  in  our  behalf,  and  for  their  sakes 
may  grant  us  many  favors  :  therefore, 
we  believe  it  is  good  and  profitable 
to  desire  their  intercession,  and  that 
this  manner  of  invocation  is  no  more 
injurious  to  Christ,  our  Mediator, 
than  it  is  for  one  Christian  to  beg  the 
prayers  of  another  in  this  world. 
Notwithstanding  which,  Catholics  are 
not  taught  so  to  rely  on  the  prayers 
of  others  as  to  neglect  their  own  duty 
to  God  :  in  imploring  His  divine  mercy 
and  goodness  ;  in  mortifying  the  deeds 
of  the  flesh  ;  in  despising  the  world  ; 
in  loving  and  serving  God  and  their 
neighbor;, in  following  the  footstep? 
of  Christ  our  Lord,  who  is  the  way 
the  truth,  and  the  life,  to  whom  b« 
honor  and  glory  for  ever  and  ever. 
Ametu 


FATHER  NICHOLAS  SHEEHY. 


1766 

From  the  petty  tyranny  which  had  at  all  times  driven 
whe  peasantry  to  band  together  in  illegal  associations,  from 
the  rack-rent  and  the  persecution  of  the  tithe-proctors — in 
short,  from  that  spirit  of  natural  and  universal  resistance 
to  injustice  and  oppression,  sprang  the  terrible  organiza- 
tion known  as  the  Whiteboys,  which  caused  such  terror 
in  Tipperary  and  Limerick,  and  the  south  of  Ireland 
generally,  in  the  course  of  the  last  and  present  centuries. 
They  fairly  overran  the  country  at  night,  dressed  in 
white  shirts,  from  which*  they  took  their  name;  levelled 
the  fences  with  which  the  landlords  had  enclosed  the 
public  commons  for  their  own  use;  dug  up  the  fields 
which  had  been  sown  in  grass,  and  from  which,  most 
likely,  some  of  the  Whiteboys  had  been  themselves 
ejected ;  cut  down  trees,  and  carried  on  such  an  inces- 
sant, harrassing  war  of  destruction,  that  the  landlords 
were  encouraged  to  increase  their  already  abundant 
means  of  persecution,  and  this  they  did  with  terrible 
effect. 

In  order,  in  thi5  first  place,  to  secure  the  aid  of  govern- 
ment and  the  sympathy  of  those  in  high  places,  the 
landlords  sought  and  found  a  host  of  witnesses  ready  at 
any  time  to  swear  to  the  existence  of  a  treasonable  con- 
spiracy for  the  restoration  of  the  Stuarts  and  the  Catholic 
religion.  In  the  next  place,  they  proposed  tqstrike  terror 
at  once  to  the  hearts  of  the  disaffected  people,  by  wreak- 
ing desperate  vengeance  on  some  of  the  faithful,  self-sacri- 
ficmg  clergy. 


C52 


Father  Nicholas  Shcchy. 


Their  plots  succeeded  admirably  well ;  for  the  Earl 
of  Drogheda,  with  the  forces  under  his  command,  'A'as 
ordered  to  Clogheen,  county  Tipperary,  to  act  m  con- 
junction with  the  Protestant  magistrates  and  gentlemen, 
who,  thus  strengthened  and  encouraged,  proceeded  to 
carry  out  their  programme,  selecting  as  their  victim  the 
Rev.  Nicholas  Sheehy. 

This  good  priest  was  just  such  a  man  as  wins  the 
utmost  respect  and  love  of  the  true  Irish  heart.  He  w^as 
warm  and  generous  in  disposition,  destitute  of  every 
thought  of  self;  full  of  sympathetic  charity  for  the  flock 
of  over-awed,  poverty-stricken,  down-trodden  people 
among  whom  he  had  chosen  to  cast  his  lot,  pitying  their 
affliction,  relieving  by  every  means  in  his  power  their 
actual  distress,  while  fatigue  and  time,  huniiliation  and 
insult,  were  of  no  account  in  his  estimation,  when  it  was  a 
question  of  softening  the  wrath  or  staying  the  persecu- 
tion of  their  oppressors.  He  was  a  man  of  bold  heart, 
one  to  whom  the  sense  of  fear  seemed  unknown,  as  the 
petty  tyrants  themselves  seemed  to  acknowledge  by  their 
combined  and  inhuman  thirst  for  his  death.  Yet  in  his 
case,  as  in  that  of  every  true  Catholic  priest  persecuted 
under  one  or  anotlier  political  pretext,  the  blindness  of 
those  who  fic^ht  ascainst  the  Lord  is  most  manifest.  Had 
it  not  been  for  the  noble  and  incessant  exertions  of  the 
Catholic  clergy,  who  made  use  of  their  vast  influence 
over  their  flocks  to  curb  and  control,  or  at  least  restram, 
the  unhappy  inclination  to  rebellion  which  seems  inherent 
in  human  nature,  especially  against  illegal  and  ill-used 
authority,  there  is  but  little  doubt  that  the  whole  fair 
island  would  have  become  one  vast  arena  of  violence 
and  anarchy :  for  the  Catholic  people  were  fairly  driven 
to  understand  that  they  had  absolutely  naught  to  hope 
from  their  heartless  rulers.  They  saw  their  priests 
accused  of  rebellion  and  treasonable  teachings,  when,  time 
and  again,  they  well  knew  how  strenuously  those  same 


Martyrs  and  Confessors, 


G53 


priests  had  not  only  coaxed  and  urged,  but  threatened 
with  the  terrible  judgments  of  the  Church  all  those  who 
were  inclined  to  take  the  vengeance  of  the  Lord  into 
their  own  hands  against  their  oppressors.  They  had 
heard  their  fathers  tell,  the  memories  of  their  own  infancy 
recalled,  and  now  their  own  manhood  witnessed,  the 
scorn,  the  ignominy,  the  diabolical  treatment  to  which 
priest  after  priest  and  bishop  after  bishop  were  exposed, 
and  from  which,  for  their  sake,  these  martyrs  of  the 
living  God  never  flinched. 

Such  a  man  was  Father  Sheehy,  a  native  of  Tipperary, 
but  educated  in  France,  because  the  laws  of  Christian 
England  forbade  a  Catholic  gentleman  to  educate  his 
children  in  the  faith  of  his  fathers.  Even  after  his  return 
to  his  native  land,  he  was  for  a  tim.e  compelled  to  oflfei: 
the  Holy  Sacrifice  and  administer  the  consolations  of 
religion  secretly,  because  the  number  of  priests  who 
began  to  be  tolerated  was  limited  by  law,  and  could  not 
be  increased  without  certain  punishment.  Already  had 
he  been  several  times  within  the  grasp  of  the  law,  yet 
managed  each  time  to  escape  conviction,  when  his  ap- 
pointment to  the  regular  mission  at  Clogheen,  and,  later, 
to  the  united  parishes  of  Shandraghan,  Ballysheehan  and 
Templeheny,  brought  mm  somewhat  under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  law,  but  still  more  under  the  eye  of  his  bitter 
enemies,  the  Orange  magistrates  and  landowners  of  the 
county.  These  men,  among  whom  were  Sir  Thomas 
Maude,  John  and  William  Bagwell,  Bumbury,  Toler 
(worth)  ancestor  of  the  notorious  Lord  Norbury),  and 
John  Hewitson,  Rector  of  Clogheen,  irritated  by  his  undis- 
guised opposition  to  their  unjust  taxation  and  crushing 
intolerance,  formed  a  close  alliance  for  his  destruction  or, 
rather,  viurder. 

After  one  or  another  trumped-up  charge  against  him 
had  been  in  vain  essayed,  they  succeeded  in  having  liim 
indicted  on  the  charge  of  aiding  and  abetting  in  the 


G54 


Father  Nicholas  Shcchy, 


murder  of  one  John  Bridge,  a  poor  half-simpleton,  whom 
intimidation  had  induced  to  turn  informer  as^ainst  the 
Whiteboys.  Bound  over  to  appear  for  their  prosecution 
at  the  coming  assizes,  Bridge  suddenly  disappeared,  and 
the  enemies  of  Father  Sheehy  seized  the  opportunity 
to  accuse  him  of  complicity  in  the  supposed  or  pretended 
murder  of  John  Bridge.  Here  was  a  rare  chance  ;  and 
no  trouble  was  spared,  nor  expense,  in  manufacturing  a 
body  of  witnesses  who  would  swear  away  the  priest's 
life  for  a  few  paltry  guineas,  or  to  gratify  some  personal 
spite.  Parson  Hewitson  was  eminently  successful  in 
getting  such  ;  and  by  promises  and  bribes  succeeded  in 
enlisting  in  his  service  a  disreputable  woman  named 
Mary  Bradly,  alias  Moll  Dunlea,"  whom  Father  Sheehy 
had  expelled  from  his  chapel  for  her  wicked,  immoral  life; 
one  Toohey,  a  noted  horse-thief,  who  was  brought  out 
of  the  jail  of  Kilkenny  for  this  purpose;  and  a  vagabond 
strolling  boy,  named  Lonergan.  On  the  information  of 
these  immaculate  witnesses,  a  warrant  was  issued  for  the 
arrest  of  the  priest,  and  .^300  offered  for  his  apprehension. 

Father  Sheehy,  knowing  full  well  that,  if  he  were 
brought  to  trial  at  Clonmel,  he  had  not  the  least  chance 
of  escape  from  his  relentless  enemies,  concealed  himself 
for  several  months,  and  was  even  sheltered  by  several 
Protestants,  particularly  by  a  farmer  named  Griffith,  at 
Shandraghan.  After  much  suffering  and  many  escapes, 
Father  Sheehy  wrote  a  letter  to  Secretary  Waite  at 
Dublin  Castle,  offering  to  surrender,  on  condition  mat 
he  should  be  tried  in  Dublin  ;  stating  that,  so  bitter  were 
the  Tip})crary  magistrates  against  him,  he  could  riot  have 
a  fair  trial  at  Clonmel. 

His  offer  was  accepted.  Father  Sheeh}^  at  once  deliv- 
ered himself  up  to  Mr.  O'Callaghan,  a  just  magistrate, 
and  ancestor  of  the  present  Lord  Donoghmore,  who  not 
only  received  him  kindly,  but  sent  to  Clogheen  for  a 
troop  of  horse  to  escort  him  to  Dublin,  fearing  to  deliver 


/ 


Martyrs  and  Confessors,  655 

him  to  the  Orange  constables,  whom  his  brother  magis- 
trates had  in  their  service. 

Once  escaped  from  the  clutches  of  his  enemies,  his 
natural  goodness  of  heart  and  his  frank  affability  of  man- 
ner failed  not  to  produce  their  effect  on  those  about  him. 
He  was  first  lodged  with  the  provost,  in  the  lower  castle- 
yard  ;  but,  after  a  cursory  examination,  his  innocence  was 
so  apparent  to  Mr.  Secretary  Waite  (already  prepos- 
sessed in  his  favor  by  his  letter  of  capitulation,  so  to 
speak)  and  to  Town-Major  Sirr,*  that  he  was  at  once 
freed  from  ail  restraint,  and  permitted  to  go  anywhere 
within  the  city  limits.  Major  Sirr  went  so  far  as  to 
become  security  for  his  appearance  at  the  approaching 
trial. 

"  I  will  never  believe,"  said  the  good-natured  town- 
major,  that  such  a  man  as  he  is  guilty  of  the  crimes  laid  to 
his  charge.  I  have  had  some  experience  of  those  over- 
zealous  worthies  in  the  South,  who  trump  up  plots  thick 
and  fast  to  keep  their  hands  full  of  business  ;  and  I  swear 
to  you  (of  course  it  goes  no  further)  that  in  nine  cases  out 
of  ten  it  is  they  who  deserve  trial,  and  not  the  poor 
miserable  devils  of  countrymen  whom  they  goad  to  mad- 
ness with  their  oppressions  and  exactions.  But  that  is 
not  our  affair  ;  it  is  for  the  judges  to  look  after  that. 
This  priest,  how^ever,  must  not  be  kept  in  prison,  for  I 
see  his  innocence  as  plain  as  I  see  your  face.  So  I'll  be 
his  security  for  appearing  when  called  on ;  let  him  out 
on  my  responsibility." 

"Agreed!"  was  Waite's  answer;  and  Father  Sheehy 
was  speedil}^  informed  that,  until  such  time  as  his  trial 
came  on,  he  was  at  liberty  to  go  where  he  pleased,  pro- 
vided he  did  not  quit  the  precincts  of  Dublin  city. 

His  word  of  honor  was  then  taken  that  he  would 


•  This  Mnjor  Sirr  was  father  to  him  who  exercised  such  wanton  cruelty  on 
the  noble  but  unfortunate  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald, — a  striking  verification, 
surely,  of  the  old  proverb  that  many  a  good  father  has  a  bad  son. 


65G 


Fatlur  Nicholas  Slieehy* 


appear  when  called,  and,  with  many  expressions  of  heart- 
felt gratitude  to  the  high-minded  gentlemen  who  had  dealt 
so  generously  by  him,  he  withdrew,  almost  a  free  man. 

Nearly  eleven  months  had  passed  away  before  Father 
Sheehy  was  brought  up  for  trial,  the  case  being  put  back 
from  time  to  time  under  one  pretence  or  another.  During 
all  that  long  period  he  had  been  supplied  with  funds  by 
his  friends  in  the  country,  whom  he  had  the  comfort* 
moreover,  of  seeing  from  time  to  time,  and  especially  his 
favorite  cousin,  Martin  O'Brien,  who,  in  fact,  remained 
almost  constantly  with  him. 

On  the  loth  of  February,  1766,  he  was  arraigned  at  the 
bar  of  the  Court  of  Queen's  Bench,  before  Chief-Justice 
Gore  and  Judges  Robinson  and  Scott. 

It  is  remarkable  that  in  this  trial  he  was  accused  of 
only  treasonable  practices,  and  not  for  the  murder  of 
Bridge.  The  charge  was  a  serious  one,  no  doubt,  and 
even  the  stoutest  heart  might  well  have  quailed  under 
the  circumstances,  but  Father  Sheehy  looked  with  a  smil- 
ing countenance  on  the  imposing  array  of  white-wigged 
lawyers,  the  earnest-looking  occupants  of  the  jury-box, 
as  they  crowded  forward'to  see  the  prisoner;  nay,  even 
the  grave  and  awful  dignity  of  the  three  judges  failed  to 
blanch  his  cheek  or  to  dim  his  eye.  That  cheek  had 
much  of  the  freshness  of  youth,  and  that  clear,  blue  eye 
was  full  of  life  and  spirit,  while  his  fine  aquiline  nose 
gave  token  of  the  decision  w^hich  marked  his  character. 
The  trial  went  on,  evidence  on  both  sides  was  sifted  to 
the  bottom,  and  it  is  but  fair  to  say  (what  respectable 
historians  have  already  said)  that  the  whole  proceedings 
were  marked  by  the  strictest  impartiality.  Several  hours 
were  occupied  in  the  examination  of  the  witnesses,  and 
very  often,  as  some  glaring  inconsistency  was  discovered 
in  the  evidence  for  the  prosecution,  or  some  shameless 
bribery  was  brought  to  light,  Town- Major  Sirr,  v/ho  sat 


Martyrs  and  Confessors, 


near  the  judges,  would  address  a  whispered  remark  to 
the  srentleman  who  sat  next  to  him.  Throug-hout  the 
whole  trial  the  judges  treated  the  Tipperary  dignitaries 
with  something  very  like  contempt,  to  the  great  discom- 
fiture of  those  ultra-loyal  persons ;  and  when,  at  seven 
o'clock  in  the  evening,  Chief-Justice  Gore  rose  to  ad- 
dress the  jury,  he  said  it  gave  him  no  ordinary  pleasure 
to  assure  them  that  the  court  was  unanimous  in  declaring 
Mr.  Sheehy  innocent  of  the  charge  brought  against  him. 
The  jury  retired,  and  very  soon  returned  to  their  box  with 
a  verdict  of  Not  guilty/*  No  sooner  was  the  word  pro- 
nounced than  one  wild,  enthusiastic  cheer  rang  out  from 
hall  and  gallery,  and  was  caught  up  by  the  multitude 
without.  Father  Sheehy  manifested  not  the  smallest 
change  of  countenance,  but  stood  leaning  against  the 
railing  of  the  dock,  with  folded  arms  and  head  slightly 
raised  in  the  attitude  of  listening. 

But  the  drama  was  not  yet  concluded — the  chief-jus- 
tice arose,  to  address  the  prisoner. 

At  that  moment  Father  Sheehy  looked  toward  one  of 
his  chief  opponents,  w^ho  had  come  all  the  way  from 
the  neighborhood  of  Clogheen  to  be  present  at  the  trial, 
and  he  saw  on  his  face  an  exulting  smile  which  boded 
him  no  good.  His  6)^6  wandered  on  to  the  chief-justice, 
and  he  was  convinced  that  there  was  something  more  to 
come,  for  the  face  of  the  judge  had  undergone  a  serious 
change.  After  a  momentary  pause  he  said  :  *'  The  jury,  as 
I  expected,  has  acquitted  you  of  the  charges  contained 
in  the  indictment,  and  by  this  time  you  should  have 
been  free,  had  not  a  fresh  obstacle  presented  itself, — one, 
too,  involving  the  most  serious  consequences."  He 
paused  a  moment,  and  then  exchanged  a  few  words  in  a 
low  voice  with  the  other  two  judges :  a  deathlike  quiet 
pervaded  the  court, — the  silence  of  intense  anxiety  and 
expectation.  All  eyes  were  turned  on  the  priest;  his 
head  had  fallen  on  his  chest,  and  he  seemed  lost  in  thought 


C58 


FaiJier  Nicholas  Sheeny, 


but  no  shadow  of  fear  was  seen  on  his  face.  The  judge 
spoke  again,  and  Father  Sheehy  raised  his  head  to  listen  : 
"  Nicholas  Sheehy,  it  is  now  my  painful  duty  to  remand 
you  to  prison  :  you  are  charged  with  being  accessory  to 
the  willul  and  deliberate  murder  of  John  Bridge  I"  At 
these  words  a  shudder  ran  through  the  assembly,  whilst 
a  cry  of  horror  escaped  from  almost  every  individual 
present.  All  eyes  were  now  turned  on  the  unfortu- 
nate prisoner,  who  was  evidently  doomed  to  undergo 
every  species  of  persecution,  and  to  be  deprived  of  all 
chance  of  escape.  He  was  pale,  but  his  eye  was  still  un- 
dimmed,  though  a  tear  was  evidently  forcing  its  way. 
After  a  moment  of  silence  he  bowed  low  to  the  chief- 
justice,  and  then  to  each  of  the  other  two  judges,  and 
laitly  to  the  jury. 

My  Lord  Chief-Justice,"  he  said  at  length,  this 
new  accusation,  terrible  as  it  is,  does  not  at  all  surprise 
me.  Knowing  the  men  from  whom  it  comes,  and  their 
persevering  enmity  toward  me,  I  had  every  reason  to 
expect  that  they  would  be  prepared  to  follow  up  my  ac- 
quittal here — if  acquitted  I  should  be — with  some  other 
charge.  Such  a  charge  as  this,  no  one  who  knows  me 
could  have  anticipated;  but  God's  will  be  done!  I 
accept  this  grievous  humiliation  as  coming  from  His 
paternal  hand,  and  will  onl}^  pi"ay  Him  to  turn  the  hearts 
of  those  who  persecute  me.  I  am  thankful  to  this 
worshipful  court,  my  lord,  and  to  the  gentlemen  of  the 
jury,  for  the  impartiality  with  which  my  trial  has  been 
conducted,  and  will  ever  pray  that  the  righteous  Judge 
of  all  may  deal  mercifully  by  those  who  have  not. shrunk 
from  doing  justice  to  an  oppressed  and  persecuted  man. 
I  am  now  ready  to  suomit  to  whatever  fate  awaits  me, 
always  declaring  that,  if  John  Bridge  were  indeed  mur- 
dered-— which  God  forbid  ! — 1  have  had  neither  act  or  part 
m,  nor  knowledge  of,  that  execrable  deed.  I  am  well 
aware  that  this  declaration  avails  nothing  before  a  court 


Martyrs  and  Confessors, 


659 


of  justice,  bul  I  owe  it  to 'my  reputation  as  a  man,  and 
still  more  as  a  priest  of  the  Most  High  God  :  and  that 
God,  who  seeth  the  heart,  knoweth  I  do  not  prevaricate. 
I  have  done,  my  lords !" 

"Mr.  Sheehy,"  replied  the  humane  chief-justice  "it 
is  not  for  me  to  express  an  opinion  of  any  sort  in  this 
matter ;  but  this  I  will  say,  that  I  have  seldom  performed 
a  more  painful  duty  than  that  of  remanding  you  to  prison. 
Mr.  Sheriff,"  he  added,  addressing  that  functionary,  ''you 
will  take  the  prisoner  at  the  bar  again  into  custody,  until 
such  time  as  he  may  be  brought  up  for  trial." 

The  officer  bowed,  so  did  the  prisoner;  but  a  shout  ot 
execration  arose  from  the  multitude  within  and  without 
the  building.  "  A  plot !  a  plot !"  was  the  general  cry,  and 
a  violent  commotion  was  seen  to  agitate  the  crowd. 
Father  Sheehy,  before  leaving  the  dock,  turned  toward 
the  multitude  and  made  a  warning  gesture  with  his  hand. 
Speech  was  not  allowed  him,  but  the  people  understood 
his  desires,  and  showed  their  respect  for  him  by  the  pro- 
found silence  which  followed, — a  silence  which  was  only 
broken  by  a  murmur  of  pity  and  indignation.  If  any 
were  present  who  believed  him  guilty  of  this  new  crime, 
they  took  good  care  to  conceal  their  opinion,  for  not  one 
dissenting  voice  was  heard  in  the  place. 

Hardly  had  the  prisoner  quitted  the  dock,  and  the 
judges  withdrawn  from  the  bench,  when  the  fierce  shout 
was  heard  :  "A  groan  for  Maude,  Hewitson  and  Bagwell, 
the  priest-hunting,  bloodthirsty  magistrates  of  Clogheen  ! 
There  goes  one  of  them,  boys :  let  him  hear  how  well  the 
Dublin  lads  can  hoot  such  rascals!"  The  groan,  or  rLther 
series  of  groans  and  hisses  which  followed,  made  Bag- 
well right  glad  to  escape  to  nis  carriage,  wnich  was  in 
waiting,  while  his  black  heart  overflowed  with  venom 
to  hear  the  wild  and  oft-renewed  cheer  which  ascended 
from  many  thousand  voices  at  the  mention  of  Father 
Sheehy's  name.    And  again  and  again  the  cry  arose  of. 


Gr>0  Father  Nicholas  Sheehy, 

*•  Sheehy  forever!  down  with  the  Tipperary  magis- 
trates! "  until  Bagwell  thought  it  would  never  cease,  or 
that  he  could  never  get  fast  enough  out  of  hearing 
"  But  we'll  have  our  revenge  for  this,"  was  his  con- 
soling reflection, — by  the  soul  of  King  William,  but 
we'll  have  our  day,  and  a  black  day  it  will  be  for  him, 
the  Popish  villain ;  that's  as  sure  as  my  name  is  John 
Bagwell.    His  Dublin  mob  shan't  save  him ;  no,  by 

h  ,  nor  this  white-livered  Gore,  if  he  was  again  sitting 

in  judgment ;  but  he  shan't,  for  we'll  lose  a  fall  for  it,  or 
we'll  have  him  brought  to  Clonmel.  This  trying  the 
fellow  in  Dublin  will  never  do,  and  1  knew  that  all  along." 

Bagwell  had  his  revenge,  for  he  succeeded  in  having 
Father  Sheehy  sent  back  to  Clonmel  for  trial ;  and  in 
order  to  heap  indignities  upon  him,  on  his  way  back,  his 
hands  were  manacled,  and  his  feet  tied  under  the  horse's 
body,  so  that  the  cords  sank  into  the  very  flesh  to  the 
bones. 

It  was  night  when  he  entered  Clonmel,  and  it  was  by 
torchlight  that  he  passed  those  gloomy  gates  which 
were  to  him  the  portals  of  fate.  They  closed  behind 
him,  and  as  the  echo  died  away  along  the  dreary  walls,  a 
cold  shiver  darted  through  all  his  body,  and  for  the  first 
time  in  his  life  his  heart  sank  within  him,  for  he  felt  as 
though  the  icy  hand  of  death  were  already  grasping 
him,  and  the  warm,  living  world  was  shut  out  forever. 
But  his  depression  was  only  momentary.  "  Why  should 
1  despair  ?  "  he  said  to  himself.  "  They  cannot  deprive  me 
of  heaven  unless  through  my  own  fault ;  and  the  greater 
my  sufferings  and  humiliations  here,  the  greater  will  be 
my  reward  hereafter,  provided  God  gives  me  the  grace 
to  sanctify  them  by  consecrating  all  entirely  to  Him. 
Courage,  njy  soul !  heaven  lies  beyond  the  dark  portals 
of  death  ;  let  us  not  shrink  from  the  passage,  since  Christ 
Himself  has  set  us  the  example.  He  died,  then  why 
should  we  fear  to  die?" 


Martyrs  and  Confessors, 


6G1 


His  reflections  were  cut  short  by  the  jailer,  wlio 
roughly  bade  nim  follow ;  and  he  was  very  soon  the  ten- 
ant of  a  cold,  damp  cell,  on  the  first  floor  of  the  prison. 
Again  did  his  heart  sink;  but  he  quickly  shook  off  his 
despondency,  and  betook  himself  to  prayer. 

No  sooner  was  his  arrival  in  Clonmel  made  known 
than  the  whole  country  was  thrown  into  a  feverish  ex- 
citement. Some  were  rejoiced, — that  is  to  say,  the  few 
who  lived  in  the  hopes  of  seeing  the  Catholic  party 
entirely  prostrated,  and  the  Protestant  ascendancy  per- 
manently established  ;  out  by  the  great  mass  of  the 
people  the  event  was  hailed  with  all  the  wildness  of  lam- 
entation. It  is  very  questionable  if  any  one  individual  there 
really  believed  Father  Sheehy  cognizant  of  Bridge's 
murder,  if  murdered  he  indeed  was ;  but  it  is  quite  certain 
that  many  affected  to  believ^e  it. 

But  the  priest  was  not  alone  in  this  new  misfortune, 
for  it  was  the  policy  of  the  ruling  party  to  get  rid  of  the 
most  influential  Catholics,  either  by  fair  or  foul  means; 
and  the  disappearance  of  Bridge,  the  crown  witness,  was 
a  glorious  opportunity  for  involving  many  of  them  in  one 
common  ruin. 

On  the  1 2th  of  March,  1766,  he  was  brought  to  trial  at 
Clonmel,  with  Edward  Meehan,  or  Meighan,  of  Grange, 
charged  with  the  murder  of  John  Bridge,  at  Shanbally,  on 
the  28th  of  October,  1764.  So  great  was  the  terror  in 
which  the  Tipperary  magistrates  were  held,  that  he 
could  not  get  a  lawyer  to  take  up  his  case,  except  a 
Dublin  attorney  named  Sparrow,  who  knew  little  of  its 
merits,  or  of  the  character  of  the  priest's  enemies,  and 
who  had  to  steal  out  of  town  at  night,  owin^-  -lo  the  threats 
of  the  Orange  faction. 

Toohey,  who  had  been  brought  out  of  jail  to  swear 
away  the  life  of  the  priest,  stated  that  he  was  present 
with  a  party  of  Whiteboys  when  Sheehy  tendered  an  oath 


6G2  Father  Nicholas  Sheehy. 

to  Bridge,  binding  him  to  deny  his  information  al  the 
coming  trial ;  that  Bridge  refused  to  take  it,  and  then  one 
Fierce  Byrne  struck  at  him  with  a  stone,  and  Edmund 
Meehan  struck  him  with  a  billhook  on  the  head,  killing 
him  instantly  ;  that  Father  Sheehy  then  swore  all  present 
10  keep  the  murder  secret,  and  to  be  true  to  the  King  of 
France;  that  the  body  was  then  removed  two  miles  from 
ihe  scene  of  the  murder,  and  interred  in  a -lonely  place. 

The  boy  Lonergan  swore  that  he  met  the  party  on 
their  way  to  bury  the  body,  and  that  Father  Sheehy 
gave  him  three  half-crowns  not  to  inform  on  them. 

Moll  Dunlea  was  the  next  witness,  and,  as  she  had  an 
old  spite  against  the  priest  for  hunting  her  out  of  the 
parish  on  account  of  her  debauchery,  she  did  some  strong 
swearing. 

She  swore  that  she  lived  with  her  mother  at  Clogheen  ; 
that  Michael  Kearney  was  at  their  house,  and  that,  the 
night  of  the  murder.  Father  Sheehy  called  for  him ;  that 
she  followed  them  to  Shanbally,  when  she  saw  them 
and  Ned  Meehan,  Thomas  Magrath,  and  others,  carrying 
the  dead  body  of  Bridge,  which  they  buried  at  a  place 
called  Baron  ;  that  she  was  also  present  when  the  body 
was  removed  from  there,  and  buried  at  Ballysheehan  ; 
that  on  both  occasions  the  priest  swore  all  present  to 
secrecy. 

The  above  is  the  leading  testimony  upon  which  sev- 
eral persons  were  hanged.  Is  there  anything  more  im- 
probable than  that  a  body  of  men  contemplating  murder 
would  let  a  notorious  thief  and  scoundrel,  a  strolling  boy 
and  an  unprincipled  prostitute,  into  the  secret? 

Ann  Hullan,  Moll  Dunlea's  mother,  swoi-e  that  Moll 
slept  in  the  same  bed  with  her  the  night  of  the  murder 
and  several  nights  before  and  after ;  and  that  Michael 
Kearney  was  not  in  their  house  that  year  at  all. 

George  Flannery,  Thomas  Gorman,  Harry  Keating 
and  others,  proved  that  Michael  Kearney  had  left  the 


Martyrs  and  Confessors. 


6G3 


country  before  the  time  of  the  murder ;  and  a  farmer 
named  Hendrekin  swore  that  Edmund  Meehan  spent,  in 
his  house,  the  entire  night  on  which  it  was  said  Bridge 
was  killed. 

In  any  other  country  but  Ireland  such  an  impeach- 
ment of  the  prosecutors  would  immediately  acquit  the 
prisoners,  but  the  ascendancy  party  had  the  judge  and 
jury  in  their  hands,  and  were  resolved  to  hang  their  vic- 
tims. Father  Sheehy  had  several  respectable  witnesses 
to  testify  in  his  behalf ;  but  his  relentless  enemies  laid 
snares  for  them,  and  had  some  arrested  as  Whiteboys, 
and  others  for  murder. 

A  Mr.  Herbert,  a  respectable  farmer,  was  arrested  on 
the  charge  of  being  a  Whiteboy,  on  his  way  to  court,  and 
was  so  terrified  by  threats  of  execution,  that  he  subse- 
quently turned  a  witness  for  the  prosecution. 

Mr.  Keating,  of  Tubrid,  a  highly  respectable  Catholic 
gentleman,  testified  that,  during  the  entire  night  of  the 
supposed  murder.  Father  Sheehy  was  in  his  house  at 
Tubrid,  and  could  not  have  left  it  without  his  knowledge. 
At  this  stage  of  the  proceedings.  Parson  Hewitson  arose 
in  court,  with  a  paper  in  his  hand,  and  said :  I  find  in 
this  list  Mr.  Keatinor's  name  among-  those  concerned  in  the 
late  murder  of  a  serjeant  and  a  corporal  at  Newmarket." 
Mr.  Keating  was  at  once  removed  and  committed  to  jail, 
and  his  testimon}^  expunged.* 

This  ruse  showed  how  well  the  masfistrates  had  laid 
their  devilish  plots,  and  struck  terror  into  several  i'l 
court  who  might  ha^ve  given  important  evidence,  but 
who  saw  that,  by  so  doing,  they  would  get  themselves 
flung  into  jail,  without  doing  any  good  to  the  doomed 
priest. 

•  Mr.  Keating  succeeded  in  having  his  trial  removed  to  Kilkenny,  out  of 
reach  of  the  Tipperary  Orange  magistrates,  and  was  honorably  acquitted.  The 
jury  scouted  the  evidence  brought  against  him«  which  was  partly  the  »aaie  as 
convicted  Father  Sheehy. 


Failwr  Nicholas  Sheehy, 


The  high-sheriff  of  the  county,  Daniel  Toler,  ancesT  ir 
of  the  notorious  and  bloody  Lord  Norbury,  made  himself 
very  active  in  intimidating  witnesses  from  appearing  on 
behalf  of  the  prisoners. 

Father  Sheehy  saw  how  deeply  the  plot  had  been  laid 
for  his  ruin,  and  as  he  saw  Mr.  Keating  removed  a 
prisoner  from  the  witness-stand,  he  knew  that  his  fate 
was  sealed. 

It  availed  little  that  several  witnesses  proved  that  they 
had  seen  Bridge  after  the  night  on  which  it  was  said  he 
had  been  murdered,  and  that  he  stated  to  them  that  he 
was  about  leaving  the  country  for  good,  in  order  to  avoid 
swearing  at  the  trials  of  some  Whiteboys.* 

All  this  availed  little,  for  the  jury  found  Edmund 
Meehan  guilty  of  the  murder  of  John  Bridge,  and  the 
same  jury  found  Nicholas  Sheehy  guilty  of  the  murder 
of  John  Bridge ;  that  is  to  say,  as  having  aided  and 
abetted  Edmund  Meehan  therein. f 

*  "  Tt  is  strange  that  there  was  nothing  said  about  the  body  of  Bridge  during 
the  trial.  The  impression  at  the  time,  and  which  still  exists  in  Tipperary, 
was.  that  Bridge  had  fled  the  country  to  avoid  both  the  Orange  faction,  who 
were  using  him  as  an  informer,  and  the  Whiteboys,  whom  he  feared  on 
account  of  his  testimony  against  them.  It  is  also  stated  that  he  was  after- 
ward identified  by  several  parties  in  St.  John,  Newfoundland.  On  the 
Other  hand,  Major  Sirr  of  Dublin  Castle,  father  of  the  notorious  Major  Sirr  of 
1798,  held  a  letter  purporting  to  be  from  Father  Sheehy,  in  whi_h  he  >tated  that 
Bridge  had  been  killed,  but  that  he  knew  nothing  of  the  murder  until  a  dying 
n^an  accused  himself  of  the  crime.  Though  Dr.  Curry,  Dr.  Egan,  and  other 
eminent  authorities,  accept  this  letter  as  genuine,  we  doubt  it,  and  look  on  it 
a.-  a  forgery,  for,  if  the  witnesses  saw  Bridge  murdered,  and  saw  the  body 
buried,  as  they  testified,  they  could  have  pointed^out  the  place  to  the  authorities, 
who  would,  most  certainly,  have  made  the  most  of  such  strong  proof  in  theii 
tivor;  but  the  fact  is,  neither  the  body  nor  the  grave  was  ever  found, 
furthermore.  Father  Sheehy's  reply  to  the  judge  confirms  the  belief  that  the 
document  was  a  forgery,  concocted  to  mitigate  the  atrocity  of  Father  Sheehy's 
foul  murder." 

t  It  is  a  remarkable  fact  that  not  one  of  the  jurors  who  tried  Father  Sheehy 
died  by  a  natural  death.  Sir  Thomas  Maude  died  a  raving  maniac,  crying  out 
that  Father  Sheehy  was  shagging  him  down  to  hell.  BagAvell,  of  Kilmore, 
b_canie  an  idiot ;  and  his  eldest  son  shot  himself  in  a  packet,  on  his  way  to 


Martyrs  and  Confessors.  CG5 

Agsu  was  the  voice  of  wailing,  loud  and  deep,  heard 
echoing  dirough  the  building  ;  sighs  and  loud  groans 
gave  no^e  that  many  a  heart,  even  in  that  packed  assem- 
blage, sympathized  with  the  unfortunate  victim  of  injus- 
tice. Bat  the  prisoner  himself  only  raised  his  eyes  to 
heaven  and  said :  "  Even  this,  my  God  !  even  this  can  I 
bear — all  things  whatsoever  Thou  wilt,  whether  they  bt 
good  or  evil.  So  long  as  Thou  keep  me  in  the  state  of 
grace,  I  can  cheerfully  submit  to  Thy  holy  will." 

On  the  following  morning  the  prisoners  were  brought 
up  for  s-entence.  Poor  Meehan  received  his  death-sen- 
tence with  great  composure,  but  the  sobs  and  cries  of 
his  aged  father  and  distracted  wife  were  pitiful  to  hear. 
Father  Sheehy  was  then  brought  forward. 

*'  Nit  holas  Sheehy,"  said  the  judge,  "  have  you  any 
reason  to  offer  why  sentence  of  death  should  not  be 
passed  upon  you  ?" 

"My  good  lord,"  said  the  priest,  with  a  simple  earnest- 
ness ol  manner  that  touched  every  heart  not  steeled  by 
prejudice, — "  my  good  lord,  I  am  aware  that  your  ques- 
tion is  a  mere  form,  and  anything  I  could  say  would  have 
no  effect ;  still,  as  the  opportunity  is  afforded  me,  I  must 
say  that  I  am  entirely  innocent  of  the  crime — the  heinous 
crime — of  which  I  have  been  convicted.    Not  only  am  I 

England,  anid  that  branch  of  the  family  soon  became  extinct.  Jacob  was 
seized  with  fits,  in  which  he  birked  like  a  dog,  and  could  scaicely  be  kept  from 
eating  the  flesh  off  himself.  Cork,  of  Kiltinan,  was  drowned.  Parson 
llewitson  died  suddenly.  Barker  had  no  heir,  and  died  in  fits.  Tuthill  cut 
his  throat.  Another  juror,  named  Shaw,  was  choked  to  death.  Alexander 
Hoops  was  drowned.  Ferris  disd  mad.  Another  dropped  dead  at  his  own  door. 
Another  died  in  a  privy.  Dunviil  was  killed  by  his  horse.  Minchin  died  in 
beggary.  The  Pennefeather  family  was  reduced  to  poverty,  and  many  of  them 
died  idiots.  The  Barker  and  Jacob  families  are  also  extinct,  in  a  direct  line 
The  same  might  be  said  of  the  families  of  nearly  all  the  jurors  who  triea 
Father  Sheehy.  Though  I  cannot  give  the  fate  of  each  of  the  jurors,  it  it 
remarkable  that  a  curse  seemed  to  blight  each  and  every  one  of  them,  and 
even  their  descendants. 

To  finish  the  catalogue  :  Moll  Dunlea  was  killed  by  falling  into  a  cellar,  in 
Cork,  while  drunk  ;  Lonergan  died  of  a  loathsome  disease,  in  Dublin  ;  anU 


Father  Nklwlas  Sheehy. 

innocent  thereof,  but,  to  the  best  of  my  belief,  no  such 
murder  has  been  committed.  1  am  almost  fully  persuaded 
that  this  very  John  Bridge  is  still  living,  for  we  have  the 
clearest  evidence  that,  some  days  subsequent  to  the  date 
of  the  supposed  murder,  the  man  was  seen  alive  and  in 
good  health,  and  took  leave  of  his  friends,  to  go  either  to 
Cork  or  Kinsale,  to  embark  for  some  foreign  country." 
Here  he  was  interrupted  by  the  judge,  who  desired  him 
to  confine  himself  to  his  own  case.  My  Lord,  it  appears 
to  me  that  I  speak  to  the  purpose  ;  surely  I  do  when  my- 
self and  another  are  to  be  put  to  death  for  a  crime  which 
never  was  committed  by  an}^  one.  Knowing,  or  at  least 
believing,  this  to  be  the  case,  I  protest  against  the  entire 
proceedings,  as  regards  Meehan  and  myself,  and  will  pro- 
test until  my  latest  moment  against  the  shameful  injustice, 
the  gross  perjury,  the  deadly  malice,  of  which  we  are 
the  victims.  In  conclusion,  I  must  declare  that,  notwith- 
standing all  this,  I  bear  these  unhappy  men  who  perse- 
cute me  even  to  death,  not  the  slightest  ill-will :  I  leave 
them  in  the  hands  of  a  just  God,  knowing  that  He  will 
deal  with  them  according  to  their  deserts.  That  is  all  I 
have  to  say.  I  leave  God  to  distinguish  between  the 
innocent  and  the  guilty.  " 


Toohey  died  of  the  leprosy.  On  the  other,  hand,  the  descendants  of  Mr. 
Callaghan,  who  showed  justice  and  mercy  to  the  poor,  persecuted  priest,  have 
become  nobles  in  the  land. 

The  following  verses,  taken  from  an  old  Irish  song,  allude  to  the  fate  of 
Father  Sheehy's  jury,  and  were  attributed  to  his  sister,  who  went  half  crazy, 
jind  watched  his  head  for  twenty  years,  until  it  was  given  up  to  her:— 

•*  And  where  are  they,  dear  head,  that  once  reviled  thee  ? 
Who  spiked  thee  high,  and  with  filthy  pitch  defiled  thee? 
All  prayers  for  pity  spurn'd,  scoflPd  and  slighted, 
They  crushed  my  head,  and  left  me  old  and  blighted. 
Sure  of  their  doom,  some  died  in  madness,  yelling 
Of  Sheehy's  quartered  corpse,  of  hell's  dark  dwelling ; 
And  some,  O  righteous  God !  impious  and  daring, 
Pour'd  forth  the*  cursed  lives,  and  died  despairing.*' 


Martyrs  and  Confessors, 


6C7 


The  judge,  after  a  few  remarks,  passed  sentence  in  the 
following  words : — 

"  You  shall  be  hanged,  drawn  and  quartered,  on  Satur- 
day next,  the  15th  inst.;  and  may  God  have  mercy  on 
your  soul,  and  grant  you  a  sight  of  the  enormity  of  your 
crime  !  " 

"  I  thank  your  lordship  for  your  good  wishes,"  replied 
the  poor  priest.  "  Doubtless  I  have  much  to  answer  for 
before  God,  since  we  are  all  sinful  creatures  at  the  very 
best ;  but  He  knows  that  of  this  crime,  or  aught  like  unto 
it,  1  am  wholly  innocent.  To  His  justice  I  fearlessly  and 
with  all  confidence  give  myself  up.  Praise,  however, 
and  glory  to  His  holy  name,  now  and  for  evermore  ;  and 
may  His  will  be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven! " 

Here  the  long-restrained  feelings  of  Father  Sheehy's 
friends  burst  forth  anew.  Sighs  and  groans,  and  half- 
stifled  exclamations  of  horror  and  pity  were  heard  on 
every  side,  and  it  required  all  the  authority  of  the  judge 
to  restore  anything  like  order.  In  the  midst  of  the 
tumult  the  prisoner  w^as  removed,  and,  very  soon  after,  the 
court  adjourned  till  the  following  day. 

During  the  short  interval  between  the  sentence  and 
its  execution,  nothing  could  equal  the  excitement  of  the 
public  mind.  People  of  all  classes  felt  themselves  deeply 
interested.  The  Catholics,  of  course,  were  filled  with  in- 
dignation ;  for  the  trial  and  conviction  of  Father  Sheehy 
and  Meehan  had  outraged  every  sense  of  justice,  being 
the  very  climax  of  shameless  corruption,  and  a  direct 
violation  of  all  law,  human  and  divine.  There  were  few 
men  of  his  day  so  popular  as  Father  Sheehy,  and  the 
people  seemed  everywhere  to  regard  him  as  the  victim 
of  his  high-souled  generosity  and  undisguised  sympathy 
with  them  in  their  sufferings.  It  required,  indeed,  all  the 
influence  of  the  priests  to  keep  them  from  pouring  into 
Clonmel  and  attacking  the  jail. 

In  their  ardent  attachment  to  Father  Sheehy  thev 


668 


Father  Nicholas  Sheehy, 


utterly  lost  sight  of  their  own  safet}^  and  would  have 
rushed  on  certain  destruction,  without  even  a  chance  of 
saving  the  doomed  victim  of  religious  intolerance  and 
political  hatred.  The  jail  was  constantly  surrounded  by 
a  strong  military  force  ;  some  of  Lord  Drogheda's  troops 
having  been  brought  from  Clogheen  to  reenforce  the 
garrison. 

By  a  great  stretch  of  favor,  his  own  immediate  family 
were  permitted  to  see  him,  and  also  Father  Doyle,  as  his 
spiritual  director.  His  demeanor  was  calm  during  all 
those  mournful  davs,  and  he  even  succeeded  in  cheer- 
ing  and  consoling  his  afflicted  relatives  by  his  glowing 
descriptions  of  the  joy  which  awaits  the  blessed  in  the 
other  world, — in  that  world  whither  he  was  hastening. 
He  studiously  diverted  their  minds  from  the  violent 
death  which  awaited  him,  and  dwelt  on  the  joy  of  being 
released  from  the  miseries  of  this  life,  and  of  putting  on 
the  robes  of  imm.ortality :  And  then,"  said  he,  '*  as  for 
the  dark  stain  which  will  rest  on  mv  character,  even  that 
need  not  distress  you,  my  kind  friends ;  for  I  feel  assured 
that  the  all-righteous  God  will  clear  up  this  fearful 
mystery  and  show  forth  my  innocence  and  that  of  poor 
Meehan.    On  this  head  I  have  no  fears." 

It  was  the  day  before  that  appointed  for  his  execution, 
and  Father  Sheehy  had  just  parted  with  his  two  sisters 
and  some  other  dear  friends,  of  whom  he  begged  that 
they  would  not  ask  to  see  him  on  the  following  day : 
*'  For,"  said  he,  as  I  am  to-morrow  to  appear  before  my 
God,  I  would  rather  be  left  to  undisturbed  preparation. 
Let  none  of  you  come  near  me,  then,  for  I  would  fain 
break  asunder,  of  my  own  free  will,  those  bonds  of 
earthly  affection, — those  *  cords  of  Adam  *  which  death 
will  rend  to-morrow.  Go  now,  my  sisters  ;  and  may  God 
bless  you  and  yours,  and  guide  you  safe  into  the  port 
of  salvation  I  For  shame,  for  shame!  why  weep  so  bit- 
terly? Why  one  would  think  you  had  but  little  ol  the 


Martyrs  and  Confessors. 


6G9 


Christian's  hope.  Do  you  not  know  and  feel  that  we 
will  meet  again,  probably  very  soon,  in  that  heaven  where 
our  divine  Master  lives  to  welcome  our  coming  ?  Only 
keep  your  last  end  continually  in  view,  so  as  to  avoid 
sin,  as  much  as  in  you  lies,  and  1  will  venture  to  predict 
a  happy  meeting  for  us  all ;  knowing  that  the  God  whom 
we  serve  delights  in  showing  mercy  to  the  contrite 
sinner.  Farewell ;  be  of  good  cheer,  and  forget  not  to 
pray  for  me  when  I  am  gone  hence."  So  sa3'ing,  he  took 
the  hand  of  each,  and  held  them  a  moment,  while,  with 
eyes  raised  to  heaven,  he  invoked  a  blessing  on  their 
heads,  and  again  exhorted  them  to  be  of  good  heart:  to 
which  they  replied  only  by  a  doleful  shake  of  the  head 
and  a  fresh  burst  of  tears. 

Martin  O'Brien  just  then  came  in,  and  Father  Sheehy 
said  to  him :  "  When  I  shall  have  suffered  the  extreme 
penalty  of  the  law,  you  will  bury  all  of  this  poor  body 
that  you  may  obtain,  in  the  old  churchyard  of  Shan- 
draghan.  It  is  not,  to  be  sure,  where  you  would  wish  to 
lay  my  remains,  but  I  bespoke  my  lodging  there  some 
months  ago.  You  will  make  my  grave  close  to  that  old 
vault,  under  the  shade  of  a  gnarled  elm  which  overhangs 
the  spot.  Tell  Billy  Griffith  that  his  noble  protection 
of  a  poor  persecuted  priest  will  be  remembered,  even  in 
heaven,  if  I  am  so  happy  as  to  reach  there,  and  that  my 
blessing  rests,  and  shall  re^t,  upon  him  and  his  children. 
You  will  also  give  him  this  watch  (it  was  a  large,  old- 
fashioned  silver  one) :  it  is  the  only  treasure  I  possess  on 
earth,  and  I  would  fain  send  that  excellent  friend  a  token 
of  my  gratitude.  Tell  him  to  keep  it  for  my  sake  :  .it  is 
all  I  have  to  give  him.  To  you,  Thomas  Burke,  I  give 
this  silver  snuff-box  :  and  do  you,  Terence,  keep  this  little 
ivory  crucifix,"  drawing  forth  one  which  he  wore  on  his 
neck;  "but  your  legacy  is  only  reversional,  my  dear 
fellow,"  he  added  with  a  melancholy  smile,  "  for  you 
are  not  to  have*it  until  after  my  death.    Then  you  are  to 


GTO 


Father  NicJiolas  Sheehv, 


take  possession ;  but  \  have  worn  it  for  many  a  year,  and 
1  cannot  part  with  it  while  hfe  remains.  For  .  you, 
Martin,  1  have  reserved  my  beads,  which  I  value  very 
highly,  for  they  were  given  me,  when  life  was  warm  and 
young  within  me,  by  one  of  the  professors  in  Louvain. 
My  breviary,  and  a  few  other  books,  I  have  given  to 
Father  Doyle  ;  and  so  1  have  already  bequeathed  all  my 
effects  :  my  body  to  Shandraghan,  and  my  soul  to  God, 
if  He  will  deign  to  accept  the  offering.  Not  a  word 
now,  not  a  word  now  !  "  he  said,  seeing  that  some  of 
his  listeners  were  about  to  speak.  *'  I'll  not  have  a  word 
spoken  with  such  a  doleful  face  as  that.  O'Brien,"  he 
suddenly  added,  we  little  thought  of  this  as  we  walked 
along,  looking  down  on  the  black,  muddy  Liffey.  1 
know  not  what  you  may  have  thought,  but  for  myself 
1  can  safely  say  that  I  never  dreamed  of  such  an  end." 

"Truly  I  must  say,  Father  Nicholas,"  interrupted 
Martin,  "  that  I  have  always  had  a  misgiving  on  my 
mind,  ever  since  1  heard  the  report  of  Bridge's  murder. 
That  report  is  the  unfortunate  cause  of  this  dreadful 
catastrophe." 

"  Not  at  all,  Martin,  not  at  all,"  replied  the  priest, 
briskly ;  "  the  cause  lies  farther  back,  and  may  be  traced 
to  the  active  part  I  took  in  getting  the  church-rates 
knocked  off  in  a  parish  where  they  ought  never  to  have 
been  paid,  seeing  that  it  contained  not  a  single  Protestant, 
and  then  in  encouraging  my  people  to  resist  that  novel 
and  most  unjust  marriage-tax.  These  are  the  first  causes  ; 
this  pretended  murder  of  Bridge  is  but  an  adjunct  of  the 
main  scheme,  for,  if  his  disappearance  had  not  furnished 
a  weapon  against  me,  the}'  would  have  found  another. 
Mv  only  grief  is  for  poor  Keating.  God  knows  what  is 
to  become  of  him  and  this  unfortunate  Meehan,  who 
leaves  so  many  helpless  mourners  behind  him ;  but  I 
trust  God  will  provide  for  them,  since  He  sees  fit  to 
deprive  them  of  their  main  support." 


Martyrs  and  Coii/tssoi  s. 


GTl 


*'  With  regard  to  Mr.  Keating,"  interposed  Burke,  "  1 
hear  he  has  been  sent  to  Kilkenny  jail,  so  that  he  will 
not  be  tried  here.  " 

Thank  God  for  that  same !  "  exclaimed  Father  Shechy, 
with  fervor.  "  He  has,  then,  a  much  better  chance  ol 
escape  :  I  am  truly  rejoiced  to  hear  that  he  is  not  to  be 
tried  in  Clonmel.  Should  any  of  you  ever  see  him  again 
tell  him  how  anxious  I  was  about  him,  and  that  my 
prayers  were  continually  offered  up  in  his  behalf,  that 
(xod  might  reward  his  goodness,  even  in  this  life,  by 
delivering  him  from  the  hands  of  his  enemies.  You 
Martin  O'Brien,  will  pay  a  visit,  as  soon  as  possible  after 
to-morrow^  to  Mr.  Cornelius. O'Callaghan,  and  thank  him 
for  his  kind  and  respectful  treatment  of  me.  Tell  him 
how  deeply  grateful  I  was,  and  that  I  remembei-ed  his 
disinterested  kindness  to  the  last  moment  of  my  exist- 
ence. I  believe  this  is  all,"  and  he  looked  around  with 
a  pleased  expression  of  countenance.  "  My  worldly  affairs 
are  now  arranged ;  and  I  am  at  full  liberty  to  attend  to 
*  the  one  thing  needful : '  my  final  preparation  for  eternity. 
Father  Doyle  promised  to  come  back  this  evening,  and  I 
hope  to  receive  the  adorable  sacrament  to-morrow  morn- 
ing for  my  viaticum.  So  now,  my  dear  friends,  you  will 
icave  me  to  myself  awhile  ;  my  soul  must  needs  prepare 
to  meet  the  Bridegroom,  and  secure  His  approbation 
before  He  ascends  the  tribunal  of  judgment.  God  be 
with  you  till  we  meet  again  !  "  He  then  shook  the  hand 
of  each  in  turn,  and  they  quitted  the  prison  in  silent 
anguish. 

On  Saturday,  the  fifteenth  of  the  month.  Father  Sheehy 
was  brought  out  from  his  cell  to  undergo  the  murderous 
punishment.  He  was  attended  by  his  faithful  friend  and 
spiritual  director.  Father  Doyle  ;  and  of  the  two,  the  latter 
showed  far  more  dejection  than  the  prisoner — the  felon. 
They  came  out  on  the  platform  in  front  of  Clonmel  jail, 
and  there  stood  side  by  side,  while  one  loud,  long  siiout 


672 


Father  Nicholas  Shechy, 


of  sorrowful  greeting  arose  from  the  assembled  niiilti 
tude.    Sighs  and  groans  were  heard  on  every  side,  and 
many  a  convulsive  sob  from  the  bosom  of  brave  and 
stout-hearted  men. 

Father  Sheehy's  eyes  filled  with  tears  as  he  advanced 
to  the  front  of  the  platform,  and  raising  his  right  hand,  he 
made  the  sio;^n  of  the  cross  over  the  heads  of  the  crowd 
below.  "May  the  Almighty  God,  before  whose  judg- 
ment-seat I  am  about  to  appear,  bless  and  protect  you  all, 
and  may  He  grant  to  each  of  you  the  graces  of  which  you 
stand  most  in  need  !  May  He  preserve  you  steadfastly 
in  the  true  faith,  by  which  alone  salvation  is  to  be  ob- 
tained !  I  need  scarcely  tell  you,  my  good  people,  that  1  die 
entirely  innocent  of  the  foul  crime  laid  to  my  charge.  As 
for  those  v^ho  have  persecuted  me,  even  to  death,  and  the 
jury  who  condemned  me  on  such  evidence,  I  forgive  and 
pity  them  all,  and  would  not  change  places  with  any  of 
them  for  all  the  riches  of  the  earth.  The  care  of  my  repu- 
tation I  leave  to  my  God:  He  will  reestablish  it  in  His 
own  good  time.  In  conclusion,  I  pray  you  all  to  retire 
quietly  to  your  homes,  and  make  no  disturbance,  for  that 
would  only  give  a  pretext  for  fresh  persecution." 

He  then  shook  hands  with  the  priest,  and  begged  to 
be  remembered  in  his  prayers;  then  calmly  turned  and 
made  a  signal  to  the  hangman.  That  functionary  was 
prompt  in  his  obedience :  a  moment,  and  the  body  of 
Father  Sheehy  swung  in  the  air:  another,  and  he  had 
ceased  to  breathe.  The  pain  of  death  was  passed : 
heaven  in  mercy  had  made  it  but  momentary ;  and  the 
wild  scream  that  arose  from  the  multitude  below,  loud 
and  heart-piercing  as  it  was,  rolled  away  unheard  b\ 
him,  and  mingled  with  the  boisterous  w^ind  that  filled 
the  air  around. 

"  May  the  Lord  God  of  hosts  have  mercy  on  your 
soul,  Nicholas  Sheehy!"  exclaimed  Father  Doyle,  loud 
enough  to  be  heard  by  the  people  in  the  street ;  "  He 


Martyrs  and  Confessors, 


G73 


will  not  refuse  you  that  justice  which  your  fellow-men 
withheld  from  you.  A  melancholy  death  was  yours,  but 
your  soul  has,  I  trust,  found  favor  before  God,  for  you 
were,  indeed,  free  from  guile." 

All,  however,  -was  not  yet  over.  The  body  of  the 
martyred  priest  was  cut  down,  and  taken  away  to  under- 
go the  remainder  of  the  sentence.  Hanging  was  not  enough 
for  the  brutal  spirit  of  the  Protestant  ascendancy ;  the 
poor,  lifeless  frame  was  to  be  draivn  and  quartered,  and, 
while  the  task  was  being  accomplished,  Edward  Meehan 
was  brought  out  on  the  platform.  He,  too,  declared  his 
innocence  in  the  most  positive  terms,  and  offered  up  an 
affecting  prayer  for  those  who  had  sworn  away  his  life, 
for  the  jur}^  who  had  condemned  him  on  their  false 
testimony,  and  for  the  judge  who  had  passed  sentence 
upon  him.  He  also  repeated  his  solemn  declaration  of 
Father  Sheehy's  innocence. 

Though  I  know, "  said  he,  that  he  is  alread}^  gone 
where  I  am  soon  to  follow,  but  still  it  is  right  to  speak 
the  truth  to  the  very  last.  That  good  priest  has  been  put 
to  death  wrongfully ;  and  when  they  did  it  to  him,  that 
was  God's  own  servant,  the}^  may  well  do  it  to  me,  poor 
sinful  man  that  I  am.  though,  thanks  to  the  great  God, 
I  am  as  innocent  of  this  murder  as  the  child  unborn. 
That  is  ail  I  have  to  say,  only  that  I  freely  forgive  all 
my  enemies,  and  pray  God  to  have  mercy  on  my  soul, 
and  the  Blessed  Virgin  and  all  the  saints  to  pra}^  for  rne, 
and  for  them  I  leave  behind." 

He  was  launched  into  eternity  almost  before  the  words 
were  uttered :  ho,  not  quite  so  soon,  for  his  sufferings 
were  somewhat  longer  than  those  of  the  priest  ;  lor  two 
or  three  minutes  he  struggled  in  the  agony  of  his  violent 
death,  and  then  all  was  still. 

The  Catholics  who  had  occasion  to  pass  that  way 
about  an  hour  before  sunset,  hurried  on  with  a  shudder, 
and  murmured,  "  Lord,  have  mercy  on  him !  "  as  they 


67 i  FatJwr  NicJiolas  Shcchy. 

glanced  at  the  stran^^e  and  ghastly  spectacle  over  the 
arched  porch  of  the  old  jail,  where  was  hoisted,  on  a 
pole,  the  severed  head  ot  the  ill-fated  priest,  the  well- 
known  features  little  changed,  were  it  not  for  the  un- 
natural purple  hue  diffused  over  all :  the  natural  effect  of 
the  iearlul  death  which  had  parted  soul  and  body. 

The  murder  of  Father  Sheehy  did  not  appease  the 
Orange  landlords.  In  the  following  month  his  cousin, 
Ned  Sheehy  ;  a  respectable  farmer,  James  Buxton,  and 
James  Farrell,  were  also  tried  for  the  murder  of  Bridge, 
for  swearing  Toohey  to  be  true  to  SJiaun  Meskill  (a  name 
given  to  the  Whiteboys,  after  one  of  their  leaders)  and 
his  children,  and  other  c*harges.  The  swearing  against 
them  was  reckless  and  savage,  being  the  sanie  as  hung 
the  priest.  They  were,  of  course,  sentenced  to  death,  and 
executed  at  Clogheen.  When  their  heads  were  chopped 
off,  a  young  girl,  named  Ann  Mary  Butler,  snatched  up 
the  head  of  Ned  Sheehy,  and  made  off  with  it. 

The  sympathizing  soldiers  made  way  for  her  and  closea 
upon  the  hangman,  who  pursued  her.  The  head  was 
decently  interred  with  the  body,  while  the  other  tw^o 
were  spiked  at  Clonmel.  These  men  declared,  just  be- 
fore their  execution,  that  they  were  offered  their  liberty 
bv  the  Rev.  Lawrence-Broderick,  Rev.  John  Hewitson, 
Sir  William  Barker's  son,  Matthew  Bumbury,  Bagnell, 
Toler,  and  Bagnall,  if  they  would  swear  against  Bishop 
Creagh,  Lord  Dunboyne's  brother,  Robert  Keating, 
several  other  gentlemen,  and  some  priests,  charging  them 
with  being  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  with  the  French 
government  to  raise  an  insurrection  in  Ireland ;  but., 
above  all,  if  they  would  declare  that  Father  Sheehy 
was  guilty,  and  that  he  *'  had  died  with  a  lie  in  his 
mouth."  These  brave  men  withstood  all,  and  died  with 
remarkable  fortitude,  declaring  their  innocence  to  the 
Inst.  Ned  Sheehv  was  the  grandfather  of  the  cele- 
brated Countess  of  Blessington,  one  of  his  daughters 


Martyrs:  and  Confessors, 


being  married  to  Edmund  Power  of  Curragheen.  Just 
twenty  years  afterward,  in  1786,  Father  Sheehy's  sister 
was  allowed  to  take  away  his  head,  and  inter  it  with  his 
body  in  Shandraghan  graveyard. 

Beside  the 'ruins  of  the  old  church  repose  the  remains 
of  Father  Sheehy.  A  beaten  path  leads  to  the  grave, 
lor  many  a  pilgrim  has  trod  over  it.  The  white  head- 
stone that  marks  this  hallowed  spot  bears  the  following 
inscription : — 

*'  Here  lieth  the  remains  of  the  Rev.  Nicholas  Sheehy, 
parish  priest  of  Shandraghan,  Ballysheehan  and  Tera- 
pleheny.  He  died  March  15th,  1766,  aged  38  years. 
Erected  by  his  sister,  Catherine  Burke,  alias  Sheehy." 


lEELANDj  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


677 


THE  PRIEST'S  LEAP. 


A  Legend  of  the  Penal  Times. 


BY  T.  D.  SULLIVAN. 

The  priest  is  out  upon  the  hill  before  the  dawn  of  day; 
Through  shadows  deep,  o'er  rugged  ground,  he  treads  his  painful  way. 
A  peasant's  homely  garb  he  wears,  that  none  but  friendly  eyes 
May  know  who  dares  to  walk  abroad,  beneath  that  rough  disguise. 
Inside  his  coat,  and  near  his  heart,  lies  what  he  treasures  most, 
For  there  a  tiny  silver  shrine  contains  the  Sacred  Host. 
Adoring  as  he  goes,  he  seeks  a  cabin  low  and  rude. 
To  nourish  there  a  fainting  soul  with  God's  appointed  food; 
For  so  it  is,  within  the  land  whose  brave  and  faithful  race 
In  other  days  made  all  the  isle  a  bright  and  holy  place. 
Its  temples  are  in  ruins  now,  its  altars  overthrown, 
Its  hermits'  cells  in  cliff  and  cave  are  tenantless  and  lone: 
The  ancient  race  are  broken  down,  their  power  is  passed  away. 
Poor  helots,  plundered  and  despised,  they  tread  the  soil  to-day. 
But  yet,  though  fallen  their  fortunes  be,  through  want,  and  woe,  and  ill, 
Close  hid,  and  fondly  loved,  they  keep  their  priests  amongst  them  still — 
Their  faithful  priests,  who,  though  by  law  condemned,  denounced  and 
banned. 

Will  not  forsake  their  suffering  flocks,  or  quit  the  stricken  land. 
The  morning  brightens  as  he  goes,  the  little  hut  is  near. 
When  runs  a  peasant  to  his  side,  and  speaks  into  his  ear. 
"Fly,  Father,  fly!  the  spies  are  out:  they've  watched  you  on  your  way: 
They've  brought  the  soldiers  on  your  track,  to  seize  you  or  to  slay  ! 
Quick,  Father,  dear!  here  stands  your  horse;  no  whip  or  spur  he'll 
need; 

Mount  you  at  once  upon  his  back,  and  put  him  to  his  speed, 
And  then,  what  course  you'd  better  take  'tis  God  alone  that  knows — 
Before  you  spreads  a  stormy  sea,  behind  you  come  your  foes; 
But  mount  at  once  and  dash  away;  take  chance  for  field  or  flood. 
And  God  may  raise  His  hand  to-day  to  foil  those  men  of  blood." 

Up  sprang  the  priest;  away  he  rode,  but  ere  a  mile  was  run, 
Bight  in  his  path  he  saw  the  flash  of  bayonets  in  the  sun; 
He  turned  his  horse's  head,  and  sped  along  tlie  way  he  came. 
But  oh!  there  too  his  hunters  were,  fast  closing  on  their  game  1 


GTS 


IRELAXD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


Straight  forward  then  he  faced  his  steed,  and  urged  him  with  his  hand. 
To  Where  the  cliff  stood  high  and  sheer  above  the  sea-beat  strand. 
Then  from  the  soldiers  and  the  spies  arose  a  joyful  cheer, 
Their  toilsome  chase  was  weil-uigh  o'er,  the  wished-for  end  was  near; 
The}'  stretched  their  eager  hands  to  pluck  the  ricer  from  his  seat — 
A  few  more  lusty  strides  and  they  might  swing  him  to  their  feet: 
For  now  betwixt  him  and  the  verge  are  scarce  ten  feet  of  ground — 
But  stay! — good  God! — out  o'er  the  cliff  the  horse  is  seen  to  boundl 
The  soldiers  hasten  to  the  spot,  they  gaze  around,  below, 
Iso  splash  disturbs  the  waves  that  keep  their  smooth  and  even  flow; 
From  their  green  depths  no  form  of  man  or  horge  is  seen  to  rise. 
Far  down  upon  the  stony  strand  no  mangled  body  lies: 
"Look  up!  look  up!"  a  soldier  shouts,  "  oh!  what  a  sight  is  there! 
Behold  the  priest,  on  horseback  still,  is  speeding  through  the  air!" 
They  look,  and  lo  !  the  words  were  true,  and,  trembling  with  affright. 
They  saw  the  vision  pierce  the  blue,  and  vanish  from  their  sight. 

Three  miles  away  across  the  bay  a  group  with  wondering  eyes 
Saw  some  strange  speck  come  rushing  fast  towards  them  from  the  skies, 
A  bird  they  deemed  it  first  to  bo;  they  watched  its  course,  and  soon 
They  deemed  it  some  black  burning  mass  flung  from  the  sun  or  moon. 
]t  ncared  the  earth — their  hearts  beat  fast — they  held  their  breath  with 
awe. 

As  clear,  and  clearer  still — the  horse — and  then — the  man — they  saw; 
They  shut  their  eyes,  the}'  stopped  their  ears,  to  spare  their  hearts  the 
shock 

As  steed  and  rider  both  came  down  and  struck  the  solid  rock; 

Ay,  on  the  solid  rock  they  struck,  but  never  made  a  sound; 

Ko  horrid  mass  of  flesh  and  blood  was  scattered  all  around; 

For  when  the  horse  fell  on  his  knees,  and  when  the  priest  was  thrown 

A  little  forward,  and  his  hands  came  down  upon  the  stone, 

That  instant,  by  God's  potent  will,  the  flinty  face  became 

Like  moistened  clay,  or  wax  that  yields  before  a  gloAving  flame. 

Unhurt,  unharmed,  the  priest  arose,  and  with  a  jnyful  stnrt 

lie  pressed  his  hand  upon  his  breast — the  Host  was  near  his  heart. 

Long  years  have  passed  away  since  then,  in  sun,  and  wind,  and  rain. 

But  still  of  that  terrific  leap  the  wondrous  marks  remain. 

On  the  high  cliff  from  which  he  sprang — now  deemed  a  sacred  place— 

The  prints  left  by  the  horse's  hoofs  arc  plain  for  all  to  trace; 

And  still  the  stone  where  he  alit  whoever  likes  may  view, 

And  see  the  signs  and  tokens  there  that  prove  the  story  true. 

May  feel  and  count  each  notch  and  line,  may  measure,  if  he  please, 

The  dint  made  by  the  horse's  head,  the  grooves  sunk  by  his  knees. 

And  place  his  fingers  in  the  holes — for  there  they  are  to-day- 

!Made  by  the  fingers  of  the  priest  who  leaped  across  the  bay. 


_j 

UJ 
X 

CO 

< 
o 

O 

< 
cr 

Q 
U 
X 


RETROSPECT. 


 ►  ^  

Though,  from  the  year  1744,  Catholic  blood  flowed 
^ess  profusely  in  Ireland,  persecution  was  not  discon- 
tinued. From  time  to  time,  bigoted  zealots  and  intoler- 
ant fanatics  reminded  the  proscribed  Catholics  that  the 
penal  laws  still  stood  upon  the  statute  books.  In  their 
insatiable  thirst  for  Papist  blood,  and  in  order  to  gratify 
their  hatred  for  Popery,  these  misguided  heretics  con- 
tinued to  devise  new  plots  in  which  to  entrap  their 
unsuspecting  brethren.  The  same  unfounded  and  un- 
proven  charges  of  high  treason  that  sent  the  martyr 
Plunket  to  the  gibbet  in  168 1,  consigned  the  saintly 
Father  Nicholas  Sheehy  to  the  gallows  in  1766. 

Before  entering  into  any  further  specific  cases  of  the 
martyrdom,  physical  and  civil,  to  which  the  Irish  race 
was  subjected  by  the  government  of  England,  we  would 
do  well  to  give  a  hasty  retrospective  glance  at  the 
various  stages  of  English  policy,  and  its  results,  in  the 
unhappy  island. 

The  broad,  fertile  lands  of  Tipperary  had  become  the 
spoil  of  Cromwellian  planters  and  soldiers,  while 
nearly  all  the  Catholic  people  of  Ireland  who  owned 
any  portion  of  the  land,  were  driven  out  of  Munster, 
r^einster  and  Ulster,  and  on  the  first  of  May,  1654,  they 
were  lorced  across  the  Shannon  into  Connaught.  The 
phrase  used  by  the  Cromwellians  on  the  occasion  was, 
•*  that  they  were  to  go  to  hell  or  Connaught."  To  the  for- 
mer place,  however,  as  being  no  part  of  the  inheritance 
of  St.  Patrick,  they  did  not  go,  but  they  were  obliged 


GCO 


Retrospect. 


to  go  to  Connaught.  Lest,  even  there,  they  might  main- 
tain any  hope  of  relief  by  sea,  or  enjoy  the  sight  of  those 
fair  provinces  and  that  beautiful  country  once  their  own, 
a  law  was  established  that  no  Irishman,  transplanted 
into  Connaught,  was  to  come  within  four  miles  of  the 
river  Shannon,  on  the  one  side,  or  within  four  miles  of 
the  sea,  on  the  other.  There  was  a  cordon  of  English 
soldiery  and  English  forts  drawn  about  them,  and  there 
they  were  to  live  in  the  bogs,  in  the  fastnesses,  and  in  the 
wild  wastes  of  the  most  desolate  region  in  Ireland  ;  there 
they  were  to  pine  and  expire  by  famine  and  by  every 
form  of  suffering  that  their  Heavenly  Father  might  per- 
mit to  fall  upon  them.  The  fond  hope,  however,  that 
they  would  yet  have  their  own,— a  hope  which  has  never 
died  out  in  an  Irishman's  bosom, — kept  alive  their  natural 
antagonism  to  the  Cromwellian  settlers.  The  rough 
Puritan  soldiers  who  came  over  to  Ireland  with  the  Bible 
in  one  hand  and  the  sword  in  the  other,  and  who  had 
settled  in  the  desolated  plains  of  fair  Munster,  and  the 
beautiful  valleys  of  Leinster,  were  men  of  pluck,  who 
would  not  tamely  endure  the  restless  spirit  of  these  old 
outlawed  proprietors,  backed  by  the  daring  peasantry, 
who  for  generations  had  ever  been  the  faithful  clansmen 
or  retainers  of  the  ancient  families.  Having  the  adminis- 
tration of  the  civil  laws  and  the  disposal  of  the  military 
m  their  hands,  they  proved  themselves  more  than  a  match 
lor  their  dispossessed  and  hereditary  foes,  while  every 
means  in  their  power  was  mercilessly  brought  into  use  to 
accomplish  their  purposes. 

When  Cromwell  died,  in  1658,  Ireland  lay  void  as  a 
wilderness ;  five-sixths  of  her  people  had  perished  ;  men, 
women  and  children  were  found  daily  perishing  in  ditches, 
starved ;  the  bodies  of  many  wandering  orphans,  whose 
fathers  had  embarked  for  Spain,  and  whose  mothers  had 
died  of  famine,  were  fed  upon  by  wolves.  In  the  years 
1652  and  1653,  the  plague  and  famine  had  swept  away 


Retrospect. 


G81 


the  inhabitints  of  whole  counties,  so  that  a  man  might 
travel  twenty  or  thirty  miles,  and  not  see  a  living  creature  : 
man,  beast  or  bird, — they  were  all  dead^  or  had  quit 
these  desolate  places.  The  troopers  would  tell  stories  of 
places  where  they  saw  smoke — it  was  so  rare  to  see  fire 
or  smoke,  either  by  day  or  night.  In  two  or  three  cabins 
where  they  went,  they  found  none  but  aged  men,  with 
women  and  children,  and,  in  the  words  of  the  prophet, 
"  they  became  as  a  bottle  in  the  smoke ;"  their  skin  was 
black,  like  an  oven,  because  of  the  terrible  famine  ;  they 
were  seen  to  eat  filthy  carrion  out  of  the  ditch,  black 
and  rotten,  and  were  said  to  have  even  taken  corpses 
out  of  the  graves  to  eat. 

Within  a  twelvemonth  after  the  Marquis  of  Clanri- 
carde  left  Ireland,"  says  Borlase,  "  Mortagh  O'Brien,  the 
last  of  the  Irish  commanders,  submitted  to  the  parliament, 
on  the  usual  terms  of  transportation,  by  the  favor  of 
which,  twenty-seven  thousand  men  had  been  that  year 
sent  away."  "Cromwell,"  says  Dalrymple  ("Men  of 
Great  Britain,"  voL  i,  part  2,  page  267),  "  in  order  to  get 
free  of  his  enemies,  did  not  scruple  to  transport  forty 
thousand  Irish  from  their  own  country,  to  fill  all  the 
armies  in  Europe  with  complaints  of  his  crueky,  and 
admiration  of  their  own  valor." 

The  design  of  the  English  Protestant  party  was 
totally  to  exterminate  the  Irish  people.  For  the  pur- 
pose of  effectually  clearing  the  country  of  the  native 
Irish,  it  was,  of  course,  expedient  to  get  rid  of  as  many 
persons  of  the  military  age  as  possible.  In  this  way 
several  other  detachments,  comprising  from  one  to  four 
thousand  men  each,  under  the  command  of  Irish  officers, 
were  disposed  of,  by  Cromwell  and  his  government,  to 
foreign  princes. 

But  the  enormities  of  the  ruling  tyrants  did  not  stop 
here.  Those  of  military  age  who  were  spared  from  the 
slaughter,  to  the  amount,  b}-  a  safe  calculation,  of  more 


682  Retrospect. 

than  forty  thousand,  were  sent  into  foreign  service,  on 
'he  continent  of  Europe,  especially  to  Spain  and  Belgium. 
?he  following  note  will  be  found  in   Dr.  Lingard's 

*  History  of  England,"  vol.  x,  page  306:  "According  to 
Pettv,  six  thousand  boys  and  men  were  sent  away.  Lynch 
{^Cavtbreiisis  Eversus)  says  that  they  were  sold  for  slaves. 
Broudin,  in  his  'Propiignaculuin  {Pragcz,  1669),  numbers  the 
exiles  at  one  hundred  thousand.  *  Ultra  centum  millia 
omnis  sexus  et  cstatis,  e  qiiibiis  aliquot  millia  in  diver sas 
AmericcB  tabacarias  insnlas  relegata  sunt'  (page  692).*  In 
a  letter  in  my  possession,  written  in  1656,  it  is  said: 

*  Catholicos  pauperes  plenis  ?tavibus  mittunt  in  Barbados  et 
insnlas  American.  Credo  jam  sexaginta  millia  abivisse. 
Expulsis  enim  ab  initio  in  Hispajiiam  et  Belgium  maritis^ 
jam  uxores  et  proles  in  Aniericam  destinantur'  " 

It  would,  indeed,  be  idle  to  exclaim  at  any  cruelty  com- 
mitted at  that  time.  Those  unhappy  exiles  perished  in 
hundreds  and  thousands.  Of  the  myriads  thus  trans- 
ported, not  a  single  one  survived  at  the  end  of  twentj 
years. 

Was  there  any  species  of  crime  which  was  not  per- 
petrated against  the  Irish  by  the  barbarians  of  the  Eng- 
lish government? 

In  Thurlow's  correspondence  the  formation  of  press- 
gangs,  to  collect  the  male  and  female  youths  for  trans- 
portation, is  stated  at  length.  "  Some  have  thought,"  says 
the  great  O'Connell,  "  that  the  system  adopted  by  the 
monster  who  now  rules  in  Russia,  of  collectinsf  vounor 
women  from  his  Polish  subjects  to  send  to  his  military 
colonies,  was  an  invention  of  his  own.    But  there  is  no 


*  "  Beyond  one  hundred  thousand  of  either  sex  and  every  age,  cf  whom 
»ome  thousands  were  sent  to  the  tobacco-growing  islands  of  America.'^ 

t'*  They  are  sending  vessels,  filled  with  poor  Irish,  to  Barbadoes  and  the  islands 
of  America-  I  believe  upward  of  sixty-thousand  have  already  g:me,  it  being 
intended  to  send  to  America  the  wives  and  children  of  those  men  who  have 
been  already  exiled  to  Spain  and  Belgium." 


Retrospect, 


683 


atrocity  so  great  as  to  not  have  its  prototype  in  the 
brutalities  inflicted  upon  the  people  of  Ireland  by  some 
of  their  English  rulers.  It  is  melancholy  to  read  such 
a  statement  as  the  following  : — 

*  After  the  conquest  of  Jamaica,  in  1655,  the  Protector, 
that  he  might  people  it,  proposed  to  transport  a  thousand 
Irish  boys  and  a  thousand  Irish  girls  to  the  island.  A 
lust  only  the  young  women  were  demanded,  to  which  it 
is  replied :  *  Although  we  must  use  force  in  taking  them 
up,  yet  it  being  so  much  for  their  own  good,  and  likely 
to  be  of  so  great  advantage  to  the  public,  it  is  not  in  the 
least  doubted  that  you  may  have  such  number  of  them 
as  you  shall  think  fit.'  (Thurlow,  iv,  23.) 

"In  the  next  letter,  H.  Cromwell  says:  *I  think  it 
might  be  of  like  advantage  to  your  affairs  there,  and 
ours  here,  if  you  should  think  fit  to  send  one  thousand 
five  hundred  or  two  thousand  young  boys,  of  twelve  or 
fourteen  years  of  age,  to  the  place  afore- mentioned.  We 
could  well  spare  them,  and  they  would  be  of  use  to  you  ; 
and  who  knows  but  it  misrht  be  a  means  to  make  them 
Englishmen,  I  mean,  rather,  Christians?'  (Page 40.)  Thur- 
low answers:  *  The  committee  of  the  council  have  voted 
one  thousand  girls,  and  as  many  youths,  to  be  taken  up 
for  that  purpose.'  (Page  75.) 

Sacred  heaven !  Thus  it  is  that  the  English  *  diet 
good'  to  the  people  of  Ireland  !  The  young  women  were 
to  be  taken  by  force  from  their  mothers,  their  sisters, 
their  homes,  and  to  be  transported  to  a  foreign  and 
unhealthy  clime.  '  O  but,'  said  the  English  rulers,  *  it  is 
^11  for  their  own  good  ! '  Then,  again,  look  at  the  cold 
blooded  manner  in  which  Henry  Cromwell  proposes  tc 
make  them  '  English  and  Christians.* 

"  *  Englishmen  and  Christians/'  But  no  !  Comment  is  use- 
less. All  these  things  appear  like  a  hideous  dream.  Thcv 
would  be  utterly  incredible,  only  that  they  are  quite 
certain. 


684 


Retrospect, 


**  Tnere  remained,  however,  too  many  to  render  pos- 
sible the  horrible  cruelty  of  cutting  all  their  throats.  The 
Irish  government,  constituted  as  it  was  of  the  superior 
officers  of  the  regicide  force,  resorted  to  a  different  plan. 
Here  is  the  account  given  by  Lord  Clarendon  of  their 
conduct: — 

"  '  They  found  the  utter  EXTIRPATION  of  the  nation 
{ivJiicJi  they  had  intended)  to  be  in  itself  very  difficult,  and 
to  carry  in  it  somewhat  of  horror,  that  made  some 
impression  on  the  stone-hardness  of  their  own  hearts. 
After  so  many  thousands  destroyed  by  the  plague  which 
raged  over  the  kingdom,  by  fire,  sword  and  famine,  and 
after  so  many  thousands  transported  into  foreign  parts, 
there  remained  still  such  a  numerous  people  that  they 
knew  not  how  to  dispose  of ;  and  though  they  were 
declared  to  be  all  forfeited,  and  so  to  have  no  title  to 
anything,  yet  they  must  remain  somewhere.  They, 
therefore,  found  this  expedient,  which  they  called  an  act 
of  grace  :  there  was  a  large  tract  of  land,  even  to  the  half 
of  the  province  of  Connaught,  that  was  separated  from 
the  rest  b}^  a  long  and  large  river,  and  which,  by  the 
plague  and  MANY  MASSACRES,  remained  almost 
desolate.  Into  this  space  the}^  required  all  the  Irish  to 
retire  by  such  a  day,  under  the  penalty  of  death;  and  all 
ivho  sJmild  after  that  time  be  found  in  any  other  part  of  the 
kingdom^  man,  woman  or  child,  SHOULD  BE  KILLED 
BY  ANYBODY  WHO  SAW  OR  MET  THEM.  The 
land  within  this  circuit,  the  most  barren  in  the  king- 
dom, was,  out  of  the  grace  and  mercy  of  the  conquerors, 
assigned  to  those  of  the  nation  as  were  enclosed,  in  such 
proportions  as  might,  with  great  industry,  preserve  their 
Jives.'"      Clarendon's  Life,"  vol.  ii,  page  ii6.) 

A  year  before  Cromwell  died,  in  1657,  w^e  find  a  mem- 
ber of  the  Irish  parliament.  Major  Morgan,  declaring 
that  the  whole  land  of  Ireland  was  in  ruin  ;  for,  besides 
the  cost  of  rebuilding  the  churches,  court-hot  scs  and 


Retrospect. 


685 


market-houses,  which  were  very  heavy,  they  were  under 
a  very  heavy  charge  for  public  rewards,  paid  for  the 
destruction  of  three  burdensome  beasts.  And  what, 
think  you,  were  these  three  beasts  ?  The  wolf,  the  priest, 
and  the  tory  !  The  wolf,  because,  at  that  very  time,  there 
was  made  a  grant  of  land  within  nine  miles  of  Dublin, 
on  the  north,  that  is  the  most  cultivated  side  of  the  city, 
on  the  condition  of  keeping  a  pack  of  wolf-hounds  to 
hunt  and  destroy  the  wolves.  These  animals  had  in- 
creased with  the  desolation  of  the  country,  so  that  they 
came,  famishing,  to  the  very  gates  of  Dublin,  whence 
they  had  to  be  driven.  The  priest,  because  his  head  had 
the  same  value  in  court  as  that  of  a  wolf,  namely,  five 
pounds;  and  the  law  of  the  English  parliament  wnich 
offered  such  a  price,  aye  and  twice  as  much,  for  the  head 
of  a  Jesuit  or  a  bishop,  was  obliged  to  be  enforced  by 
the  magistrates,  under  most  severe  penalties.  We  find 
the  country  filled  with  informers  ;  we  find  priest-hunting 
actually  reduced  to  a  profession  in  Ireland,  and,  strange 
enough,  we  find  the  Portuguese  Jews  coming  all  the 
way  from  Portugal,  in  order  to  hunt  priests  in  Ire- 
land. When,  in  1698,  under  William  III,  the  religious 
were  shipped  off  into  banishment  and  slavery,  as  we 
have  already  mentioned  (folio  438),  not  one  of  the  eight 
hundred  and  odd  secular  priests  that  remained  in  the 
land  would  be  allowed  to  say  Mass  in  public  or  private, 
nor  indeed  remain  in  the  country  until  he  first  took  the 
oath  to  renounce  the  supremacy  of  the  pope — of  papal 
abjuration  ;  in  other  words,  until  he  became  a  Protestant. 

The  third  troublesome  beast  of  Major  Morgan's  cate 
gory  was  the  tory,  under  which  name  are  included  the 
desperate  men  who,  under  some  dispossessed  gentleman 
either  aboriginal  Irish  or  old  English,  had  retired  into 
the  wilds,  on  the  surrender  of  the  army,  or  who  had  run 
out  again,  after  submitting,  and  resumed  arms  rather 
than  remain  in  Connaught.    The  country  was  infested 


Retrospect, 


with  them,  and  all  the  great  regions,  left  waste  by  war 
and  transplantations,gave  them  ample  room  for  conceal- 
ment, while  the  inadequate  numbers  of  the  forces  of  the 
commonwealth,  unequal  to  the  full  control  of  so  extensive 
a  country  as  Ireland,  lett  them  at  liberty  to  plan  their 
surprises.  These  outlaws,  who  were,  at  a  later  day, 
known  as  Rappa^ees,  and  as  such  are  described  by  Eng- 
lish historians  in  fearful  terms,  continued  long  to  infest 
and  desolate  the  country,  and  we  find  accounts  of  them 
in  state  papers,  down  even  to  the  last  years  of  the  reign 
of  George  IV. 

Before  passing  from  the  commonwealth  to  the  restora- 
tion  of  the  English  monarchy,  in  1660,  we  give  an  ex- 
tract from  the  rare  and  curious  tract  of  Father  Morison, 
published  in  1659,  containing  a  summary  of  many  of  the 
Irish  chiefs  and  nobles  who  suffered  for  their  faith,  but 
whose  names  are  not  eisewhere  given  in  our  pages: — 

"  I  do  not,"  sa^^s  the  reverend  chronicler  (of  whose 
personal  sufferings  see  mentiononpage  328  of  this  present 
work),  "  here  enumerate  any  person  slain  in  battle, 
although  he  might  have  fallen  in  the  cause  of  his  religion, 
nor  do  I  give  the  tenth  oart  of  the  persons  of  quality  who 
were  murdered,  but  only  the  more  illustrious,  being 
chiefly  those  who  were  received  into  allegiance  by  the 
Protestants  after  the  amnest}^  had  been  made  and  actually 
entered  on :  a  treactiery  which  barbarians  and  infidels 
themselves  would  abhor  and  deem  detestable. 

**  I.  Lord  Hugh  McMahon,  the  chief  of  his  illustrious 
race,  a  brave  and  noDie  military  leader,  was,  after  two 
years'  imprisonment  m  London,  half  hanged,  and,  ere  life 
was  extinct,  ouarterea  ;  his  head  was  then  placed  on  an 
iron  spike  on  Lonaon  Bridge,  to  feed  the  ravenous  fowls 
of  the  air  ;  his  four  quarters  were  placed  over  four  of  the 
gates  of  London. 

•*  II.  Cornelius  Majjuire,  Lord  Viscount  Enniskillen,  a 
most  devout  and  holy  man,  sole  conpanion  in  captivity 


Retrospect. 


687 


ol  the  aforesaid  Hugh  McMahon,  underwent  the  same 
butchery  about  two  months  after  the  execution  of  Mc- 
Mahon. 

"  111.  The  illustrious  Felix  O'Neill  (captured  by  Pro- 
testant device)  was  half  hanged  in  Dublin,  A.  D.  1652, 
and,  while  yet  alive,  was  quartered.  His  head  was  stuck 
on  a  great  spike,  at  the  western  gate  of  Dublin,  and  his 
quarters  were  sent  to  be  stuck  on  spikes  in  four  different 
parts  of  the  kingdom. 

"IV".  Henry  O'Neill,  son  of  Eugene  O'Neill,  taken 
prisoner  in  battle,  and,  notzvitJistanding  plighted  faithj 
slaughtered  in  Ulster,  A.  D.  1651. 

"  V.  Thaddeus  O'Connor  (Sligo),  descended  from  the 
royal  race  of  the  last  and  most  powerful  monarchs  of 
Ireland,  a  man  of  great  goodness  and  innocence,  hung 
m  the  town  of  Boyle,  in  Connaught,  A.  D.  1652,  after  the 
general  amnesty  had  been  made. 

"  VI.  Constantine  O'Ruairk,  taken  prisoner  in  battle, 
murdered  in  1652,  notivithstanding pligJited  faith. 

*'VII.  Theobald  de  Burg,  Lord  Viscount  Mayo,  after 
a  truce  had  been  made  with  all  such  persons  in  the 
kingdom  as  were  not  actually  in  arms  against  the  Pro- 
lestants,  and  a  general  amnesty  promised,  was  shot  in 
Gal  way,  in  1651. 

"VIII.  Charles  O'Dowd,  of  a  most  high  and  noble 
race,  was  hanged  A.  D.  1651. 

"  IX.  James  O'Brien,  of  illustrious  lineage,  maternal 
nephew  of  the  brave  Donatus  O'Brien  (of  whom  see 
account,  page  309),  a  youth  of  high  hopes  and  prospects, 
was  murdered  at  Nenagh,  in  the  Ormonds.  They  cut  his 
head  off,  and  sent  it  to  his  brother,  Moriarty  O'Brien, 
then  their  prisoner. 

"  X.  Bernard  O'Brien,  of  the  same  noble  family,  a 
youth  of  equally  fair  prospects,  was  hanged  in  1651. 

*•  XI.  Daniel  O'Brien,  first  cousin  of  the  said  Bernard, 
was  hanged,  and  his  head  cutoff  at  Nenagh,  1651. 


688 


Retrospect, 


"XII.  The  illustrious  Colonel  John  O'Kenedy  a  man 
of  the  utmost  integrity,  was  slain  by  the  swords  of  the 
Protestants,  after  their  faith  had  been  pledged  to  him  in 
battle.  His  head  was  then  cut  off,  and  fastened  on  a 
spike  in  the  town  of  Nenagh,  A.  D.  165 1. 

"XIII.  James  O'Kenedy,  son  of  the  aforesaid  illus- 
trious gentleman,  a  youth  of  great  hopes,  being  deluded 
with  a  similar  pledge  of  good  faith,  was  hanged  also  at 
Nenagh,  A.  D.  165 1. 

"  XIV.  The  illustrious  Sir  Patrick  Purcell,  Vice-gen- 
eral of  all  Munster,  noble-hearted  and  a  most  accom- 
plished warrior  (renowned  for  his  services  in  Germany, 
against  Sweden  and  France,  under  Ferdinand  III,  of 
august  memory),  was  hanged  after  the  kiking  of  Limerick, 
his  head  cut  off,  and  exposed  on  a  stake  over  the  southern 
gate  (called  John's  Gate)  of  the  city  of  Limerick,  A.  D. 
1651. 

"  XV.  The  illustrious  and  most  generous  Sir  Godfrey 
Barron,  a  sincere  Catholic,  of  the  highest  fidelity,  and 
of  singular  eloquence,  who  had  been  deputed  by  the 
confederated  Catholics  of  Ireland  as  their  envoy  to  his 
most  Christian  majesty,  Louis  XIV,  was  also  hanged  at 
Limerick. 

*'  XVI.  The  noble  Sir  Godfrey  Galway  was  likewise 
hanged  at  Limerick,  165 1. 

"XVII.  The  noble  Thomas  Stritch,  Mayor  of  Lim- 
erick,  and  alderman,  was,  with  the  like  cruelty,  hanged 
at  the  same  time  with  the  rest.  His  head  was  then  cut 
off  and  fastened  to  the  city  gate. 

••XVIII.  The  noble  Dominic  Fanning,  ex-Mayor  of 
Limerick,  and  alderman,  a  well-known  man,  and  of  the 
hignest  integrity,  who  had  been  of  great  service  to  the 
confederated  Catholics,  and  had  laudably  conferred  ijiuch 
benefit  on  the  kingdom,  as  well  as  on  the  city,  was  hanged 
at  Limerick  along  with  the  rest,  A.  D.  165 1.  His  head 
was  cut  off  and  affixed  to  the  gate. 


Rcirospcc  t. 


68J 


XIX.  Daniel  O'Higgins,  medical  doctor,  a  wise  and 
pious  man,  was  hanged  at  the  same  time  at  Limerick. 
1651. 

"  XX.  The  illustrious  John  O'Connor,  Lord  of  Kerrv 
and  Tracht,  on  account  of  his  adhesion  to  the  Catholic 
party,  and  his  efforts  to  draw  to  it  not  only  his  personal 
followers,  but  all  with  whom  he  had  friendship,  was,  after 
Having  been  seized  upon  by  stratagem  by  Protestants, 
brought  to  Tralee,  in  that  county,  and  there  half  hanged 
and  then  beheaded,  A.  D.  1652. 

"XXI.  The  illustrious  Lord  Edward  Butler,  son  of 
Lord  Mountgarret,  an  innocent  man,  who  had  never 
taken  arms,  was  hanged  at  Dublin  after  the  tripce  had 
been  commenced  and  amnesty  proclaimed  throughout 
the  whole  kingdom,  A.  D.  1652." 

That  no  mistake  may  be  made  as  to  the  real  sentiment 
which  animated  the  English  race  in  their  relentless  fury 
against  the  Irish  Catholics,  we  add  an  extract  from  a 
pamphlet  entitled,  "  The  Simple  Cobbler  of  Aggavam 
in  America,"  by  Theodore  de  La  Guard,  which  was  first 
published  in  London  in  1647,  and  passed  through  several 
editions : — 

A  word  of  Ireland :  not  of  the  nation  universally,  nor 
of  any  man  in  it,  that  hath  as  much  as  one  haire  of 
Christianity  or  humanity  growing  on  his  head  or  beard  ; 
but  only  of  the  truculent  cutthroats,  and  such  as  shall 
take  up  arms  in  their  defence. 

"These  Irish,  anciently  called  Anthropophagi,  man- 
eaters,  have  a  tradition  among  them,  that  when  the  devil 
showed  our  Saviour  all  the  kinsfdomes  of  the  earth  and 
their  glory,  that  he  would  not  show  Him  Ireland,  but 
reserved  it  for  himself.  It  is  most  probably  true,  for  he 
hath  kept  it  ever  since  for  his  own  peculiar ;  the  old  '"ox 
foresaw  that  it  would  eclipse  the  glory  of  all  the  rest ;  he 
thought  it  wisdom  to  keep  it  for  a  bog-gard  for  himself 
and  all  his  unclean  spirits  employed  in  this  hemisphere, 


GOO 


Retrospect. 


and  the  people  to  do  his  son  and  heire,  I  mean  the  Pope, 
that  service  for  which  Lewis  II  kept  his  barber,  Oliver, 
which  makes  them  to  be  so  bloodthirsty.  They  are  the 
very  off al  of  men,  dreggcs  of  mankind ;  reproach  of  Christen^ 
dome ;  the  bots  that  crawl  on  the  beastes  tail.  I  wonder 
Rome  itself  is  not  ashamed  of  them. 

'•I  beg, upon  my  hands  and  knees, that  the  expedition 
against  them  may  be  undertaken  while  the  hearts  and 
hands  of  our  soldiers  are  hot,  to  whome  I  will  be  bold  to  say 
briefly  :  Happy  is  he  that  shall  reward e  them  as  they  have 
served  us,  and  cursed  is  he  that  shall  do  the  work  of  the 
Lord  neghgently.  CURSED  BE  HE  THAT  HOLD- 
ETH  BACK  HIS  SWORD  FROM  BLOOD;  YEA, 
CURSED  BE  HE  THAT  MAKETH  NOT  HIS 
SWORD  STARKE  DRUNK  WITH  IRISH  BLOOD  ; 
that  doth  not  recompense  them  double  for  their  hellish 
treachery  to  the  English;  that  maketh  them  not  heaps 
upon  heaps,  and  their  country  a  dwelling-place  for  drag- 
ons, an  astonishment  to  nations !  Let  not  that  eye  look 
lor  pity,  nor  that  hand  be  spared,  that  pities  or  spares 
them,  and  LET  HIM  BE  ACCURSED  THAT  CURS- 
ETH  THEM  NOT  BITTERLY." 

In  1659  came  the  Restoration,  and  Charles  II  was  safely 
seated  on  the  throne  of  England.  Of  all  who  had  sup- 
ported the  caus^  of  his  father,  none  had  fought  harder 
or  bled  more  freely  than  the  natives  of  Ireland,  whom 
his  advent  found  in  worse  thai,  captivity,  amid  the  wilds 
of  Connaught.  What  more  natural  than  the  anticipation 
that  they,  who  had  been  so  true  and  so  faithful,  would 
share  part  and  parcel  in  the  restoration  of  rights? 
Aside  from  all  thoughts  of  honors  and  titles,  were  they  not 
authorized  at  least  to  expect  their  own  estates  and  pos- 
sessions ?  And  yet  Charles  II,  by  a  direct  act  of  settle- 
ment, confirmed  the  Cromwellians  in  the  lands  they  had 
seized,  in  the  very  wealth  and  influence  which  they  had 
used  against  their  lawful  possessors,  and  by  means  of 


Retrospect, 


691 


which  they  had  labored  so  successfully  to  destroy  his 
own  father's  life  aiid  kingdom. 

There  was,  indeed,  a  court  of  claims  organized,  but  it 
was  only  intended  for  the  benefit  of  such  Englishmen  as 
had  suffered  from  the  revolution  :  and  as  soon  as  it  was 
perceived  that  Irish  gentlemen  also  were  advancing  their 
claims  likewise,  and  opening  their  cases,  the  court  was  at 
once  closed,  leaving,  as  Nugent  writes,  over  five  thousand 
parties  who,  although  never  outlawed,  had  been  deprived 
of  their  property,  and  were  now  prevented  from  even 
legally  seeking  to  recover  it. 

The  negation  of  rights  was  not  all  the  evil  that  Charles 
II  inflicted  on  the  unhappy  race,  for,  beginning  in  1673, 
he  repeatedly  affixed  his  signature  to  most  infamous  laws, 
framed  for  the  very  purpose  of  aboHshhng  and  rooting 
out  every  vestige  of  Catholicity  frorr  Irish  soil.  Bishops 
and  priests  were  denied  all  right  of  residence,  and  even 
the  laity  had  to  obtain  a  license  in  order  to  breathe  freely 
their  native  air.  Edmond  O'Riley,  the  Primate,  was  ban- 
ished ;  Archbishop  Talbot,  to  whom  permission  had  been 
given  to  return  home  to  die,  was  seized  at  Maynooth,  and 
ended  his  days  in  a  dungeon.  In  1679  Bishop  Plunket 
was  seized  by  Ormond,  carried  to  London,  away  from 
all  danger  of  a  possibly  honest  jury  in  Ireland,  and  exe- 
cuted at  Tyburn,  in  t68i. 

Four  years  later  came  James  II;  and  when,  but  three 
years  later,  his  own  daughter,  Mary,  and  her  husband, 
William  of  Orange,  landed  to  establish  a  Protestant 
succession,  James  was  very  glad  to  have  the  loyal  Irish  to 
fall  back  upon  as  his  supporters,  and  the  only  supporters 
of  the  legitimate  king  of  England.  The  Irish  parliament  oi 
1689,  summoned  by  James,  declared  that  there  should 
be  no  more  religious  persecution  in  Ireland,  and  that 
no  man,  from  thai  day  forward,  should  suffer  for  his  con- 
science or  his  faith."  The  only  bill  of  attainder  thcv 
passed  was  against  the  enemies  of  the  crown,  against 


002 


Retrospect. 


the  upholders  of  the  rebellion,  and  the  unfilial  children 
ot  their  king. 

It  is  not  our  purpose  here  to  recount  the  days  when 
those  two  armed  forces  of  James  and  William  went  up 
and  down  the  land,  rich  already  v/ith  the  blood  of  so 
many  thousands  of  her  sons,  slain  for  conscience'  sake, 
and  by  the  sword  of  England,  and  now  again  to  be  satu 
rated  with  that  of  another  generation,  ever  faithful  to  theii 
Church,  and  obedient  to  the  command  of  the  unworthy 
ruler  who  claimed  their  services.  From  the  Boyne  to 
the  Shannon,  and  Athlone  to  Limerick,  spite  the  lack  of 
discipline  and  want  of  equipments,  short  of  artillcrv, 
their  best  leaders  discouraged  by  the  blundering  faint- 
heartedness of  the  king,  the  brave  Irish -never  for  a  mo- 
ment tarnished  their  name  for  heroism  and  undaunted 
braverv. 

The  second  siege  of  Limerick  closed  the  public  career 
of  the  last  Catholic  king  of  England,  in  1691,  with  the 
surrender  of  the  gallant  Sarsfield,  and  then  began  another 
period  of  niartyrdom  for  the  children  of  the  saints. 
The  depths  of  infamy  to  which  the  English  government 
sank  from  the  day  of  the  Treaty  of  Limerick  can  only 
be  conceived  by  those  who  read,  as  w^e  here  give  them,  the 
particulars  of  the  treaty,  and  then  consider  the  manner 
in  which  each  and  all  of  its  provisions  were  so  outrage- 
ously trampled  on  by  that  nation  whose  leaders,  having 
deliberately  denied  their  fealty  to  God,  felt  doubly  sure 
in  denying  it  to  their  fellow-subjects. 


A  "NUTSHELL''  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND 


FROM  THE  EARLIEST  AGES  TO  THE  PRESENT  TIME. 


BY  A.  M.  SULLIVAN,  M  P. 

Ireland,  an  island  on  the  western  extremity  of 
Europe,  constituting  a  2')ortion  of  the  state  known  as 
the  United  Kingdom  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland, .lies 
between  the  parallels  of  51  deg.  26  miu.  and  55  deg.  21 
min.  north  latitude,  and  between  5  deg.  20  min.  and 
10  deg.  26  min.  west  longitude,  Greenwich  meridian. 
It  is  306  miles  long  and  182  broad  ;  its  superficial  area 
being  about  32,713  square  miles,  or  20,808,320  British 
statute  acres.  The  interior  of  the  island  is  in  the  main 
a  fertile  plateau,  but  towards  the  shore  on  the  south, 
west  and  north,  rugged  mountains  rise  irregularly  to  a 
height  in  some  places  of  over  3,000  feet.  The  coast,  on 
the  west  especially,  is  bold,  and  in  many  places  precipi- 
tous ;  but  is,  on  every  side,  except  the  southern  portion 
of  the  eastern  shore,  deeply  indented  vvith  bays,  fiords, 
and  estuaries,  affording  natural  harbors  of  great  ca- 
pacity. The  scenery  is  strikingly  picturesque  ;  in  some 
parts  of  nnsui'passed  beauty.  The  southern  and  west- 
ern counties,  however,  contain  many  tracts  of  bleak 
and  desolate  country.  In  the  low-lvimi;  i)arts  of  the 
island  there  are  vast  areas  of  peat-moors  or  ''bogs,'' 
embedded  in  or  beneath  which  are  found  the  remains 
of  primeval  forests.  (693) 


CO-i  HlELA^'D,  PAST  AXD  PKrSEITT. 

Tliere  is  historical  certainty  that  more  than  a  thon- 
sand  years  ago  the  island  was  richly  timbered  from  sea 
to  sea  ;  but  the  destruction  of  the  woods  bv  the  En^i:lish 
power  in  the  course  of  its  five  centuries  of  warfare  with 
the  natives,  has  left  Irish  landscape  on  the  wjjole  excep- 
tionally bare  of  trees.  There  are  numerous  lakes  ;  some 
of  considerable  size.  The  principal  river,  the  Sliannon, 
Hows  into  the  Atlantic  on  the  western  side  of  the  Island  ; 
the  Lee,  the  Blackwater,  and  the  combined  Suir,  Bar- 
row, and  Nore,  reach  the  sea  on  the  south  coast  ;  the 
Bann  and  the  Foyle  on  the  north ;  and  the  Slaney,  the 
Lilfev,  and  the  Bovne  on  the  east. 

Of  the  cities  and  towns  of  Ireland,  few  can  be  deemed 
important  as  to  size  or  commercial  activity  ;  the  princi- 
l)al  of  them  being  Dublin,  Cork,  Belfast,  Waterford, 
Limerick,  and  Derry.  The  first-named  city  is,  as  it  has 
been  since  the  reign  of  King  John,  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  the  national  metropolis  and  seat  of  govern- 
ment. 

The  country  is  politically  divided  into  four  provinces  ; 
these  beino;  subdivided  into  thirtv-two  counties.  The 
climate  throughout  is  mfldand  genial  ;  more  moist  than 
that  of  France  or  Britain,  but  much  less  rigorous  than 
that  of  either  in  winter.  Although  coal,  iron,  copper, 
lead,  silver,  and  gold,  have,  at  one  period  or  another, 
been  mined  in  Ireland,  shafts  and  adits  of  long-forgot- 
ten times  being  occasionally  discovered,  the  mineral 
resources  of  the  country,  judged  bv  ])iactical  experi- 
ence, are  poor.  Manufacturing  industries,  unless  on  a 
very  insignificant  scale,  are  almost  uiikiiown,  outside 
of  the  province  of  Ulster  ;  the  great  bulk  of  the  inhabit- 
ants being  engaged  in  agricultural  pursuits.  The 
population  was,  at  the  last  census,  5,159,889  ;  exhibit- 
ing a  serious  and  steady  decrease  since  1847,  when  ic 
was  9.500,000. 

Ireland  is  governed  by  a  viceroy,  subject  to  the  im-  . 


A  "nutshell"  history  of  IllELAI^D.  C95 


perial  cabinet  ia  London,  and  is  represented  in  the 
imperial  Parliament  by  103  membeis  in  tlie  House  of 
Commons,  out  of  the  652  who  constitute  that  body. 
Out  of  494  princes,  peers,  and  bisiiops,  who  sit  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  28  are  titularly  Irish. 

Few  European  countries  are  possessed  of  authentic 
historical  data  reaching  to  an  age  so  remote  as  that  to 
which  the  ancient  records  or  memorials  of  Ireland  iu 
one  shape  or  another  extend.  Like  all  old  countries  it 
has  its  fabulous  and  legendary  periods  ;  but  reasonable 
certainty  is  attainable  at  a  much  earlier  period  in  Irish 
history  than  it  is  in  most  other  cases. 

The  inhabitants  of  Irehmd,  of  what  may  be  called  the 
native  race,  belong  to  the  great  Celtic  famih'.  For  two 
thousand  years  past  they  have  claimed  to  be  pre- 
eminently Milesians,"  that  is  to  say,  descended  from 
an  expedition  of  conquerors,  led  by  the  three  sons  of  a 
military  chief  named  Milesius,  who,  according  to  well- 
received  tradition,  landed  and  subdued  the  country 
some  ten  or  twelve  centuries  before  the  birth  of  Christ. 
But  inasmuch  as  at  least  two  distinct  colonizations  had 
j)reviously  been  effected,  and  as  the  Milesians  simply 
reduced  their  predecessors  into  subjection,  and  did  not 
extir23ate  them,  it  is  clear  the  general  po]3ulation  in  the 
course  of  time  became  more  or  less  a  combination  of  the 
new  elements  and  the  old.  The  Milesians  originally 
came  from  a  birthplace  variously  fixed  in  Persia,  Syria, 
and  Phoenicia,  and  indisputably  were  of  eastern  origin. 
They  were  a  race  of  soldiers  and  statesmen,  conquerois 
and  lawgivers.  It  wa3  they  who  virtually  organized 
and  constituted  the  Ireland  known  to  history  for  the 
last  1,500  vears. 

The  political  system  they  established  was  a  strange 
mixture  of  a  republican  monarchy  and  a  niilitar}^  aris- 
tocracy. The  country  was  divided  into  five  sub  king- 
doms, an  Ard-Ri  (literally,  high- king)  being  supreme 


C36 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


sovereign.  This  chief-king  was  elected  from  the  reign- 
ing fiimily  or  dj'nast}^  ;  rhe  electors  being  the  claii- 
cliiefs,  these  latter  in  their  own  sphere  being  elected  by 
the  clans.  A  parliament  or  *•  feis"  assembled  triennially 
at  Tara,  in  which  sat  the  princes,  chiefs,  judges,  high 
priests,  brehons,  and  bards  of  the  whole  nation.  This 
legislative  body,  one  of  the  earliest  known  in  history, 
revised  the  old  laws  and  enacted  new  ones,  very  much 
as  modern  senates  and  assemblies  do.  On  the  intro- 
duction of  Christianity  bv  St.  Patricius  or  Patrick  in 
the  fifth  century,  the  existing  code  of  law^s  was  referred 
to  a  commission,  consisting  of  one  chief,  one  brehon, 
and  one  Christian  bishop,  with  a  view  of  purging  it  of 
pagan  ideas  and  adapting  the  statutes  of  Eiin  to  Chris- 
tian principles.  The  body  of  laws  thus  revised  and 
codilied  are  now,  by  order  of  the  British  Government, 
being  translated  and  published,  as  a  rare  and  valuable 
treasury  of  ancient  jurisprudence,  parliament  making 
an  annual  grant  for  the  purpose  ever  since  18.52. 

Such  w^as  the  constitution  and  policy  which  prevailed 
in  Ireland  down  to  the  sixteenth  century,  a  period  of 
more  than  2,000  years. 

From  about  the  year  200  B.  C.  to  A.  D.  800,  the  Ire- 
land of  ancient  history  may  be  said  to  have  attained 
its  zenith  of  power  and  reputation.  In  the  three  cen- 
turies which  followed  the  introduction  of  Christianity, 
the  country  was  pre-eminently  the  great  centre  of 
scholastic  and  missionary  enterprise  in  Western  Europe. 
To  its  free  schools  and  universities  flocked  students 
from  every  part  of  Christendom,  and  Irish  missionaries 
and  teachers  spread  throughout  the  known  world. 
AVith  the  incursions  of  the  fierce  and  savage  Northmen 
or  Danes,  plundering  and  desolating  hordes  of  pagan 
marauders,  which  began  abonr  the  close  of  the  eighth 
century,  commenced  the  disorganization  and  wreck  of 
the  Milesian  nation.  These  hordes,  just  then  the  scourge 


A  ^^TsTUTSnELL"  HISTORY  OF  IRELAND.  607 


of  Western  Europe,  never  were  able  to  conquer  the# 
country  as  tliey  did  the  neighboring  island  of  Britain  ; 
but  an  intermittent  war  of  utter  barbarism,  prolonged 
through  300  years,  utterly  demoralized  it,  and  almost 
extinguished  a  civilization  that  had  been  the  light  of 
Western  Euroi')e  in  its  time.  From  A.  D.  900  to  A.  D. 
1170,  with  the  exception  of  a  brilliant  interval  of  a  few 
years  under  Brian  I.,  who  broke  forever  the  Danish 
power,  disintegration  rapidly  made  way.  The  idea  of  a 
common  national  interest  or  a  central  national  authority 
was  almost  totally  discarded.  Each  sub-king  fought 
for  his  own  hand,  and  the  post  of  Ard-Ri  was  claimed 
by  various  com^^etitors  in  reckless  and  exhausting  con- 
tests that  bathed  the  land  in  blood. 

Meanwhile,  England,  that  had  yielded  more  or  less 
easily  to  every  invader,  Saxon,  Dane,  and  Roman,  once 
more  received  a  new  yoke.  Its  new  conquerors  were 
the  Norm.ans;  who,  fortunately  for  its  future  welfare, 
Avere  strong  enough  to  weld,  albeit  by  ruthless  process, 
the  Danish,  Saxon,  and  British  kingships  and  com- 
munities of  England  into  a  single  pdlitical  system.  By 
the  middle  of  the  twelfth  centurv  the  Normans  had 
well  consolidated  their  new  kingdom,  while  Ireland  had 
been  steadily  breaking  into  fragments.  One  of  the 
Irish  sub-kings,  MacMurrough,  prince  of  the  Leinster 
or  Lagenia,  revolting  against  the  Ard-Ri,  who  liad  in- 
deed deposed  him,  applied  to  Henry  11.  of  England  for 
lielp  in  his  quarrel.  Henry  gave  him  permission  to 
seek  auxiliaries  or  mercenaries  among  the  ^sorman- 
English  knights  and  free-lances.  One  of  these,  surnanied 
Stn.ngbow,  accepted  MacMurrough's  terms,  and  swiftly 
landing  a  powerful  force  on  the  Leinster  shore,  suc- 
ceeded in  restoring  him  to  his  principality.  These 
Norman  adventurers,  brave,  skilful,  and  highly  dis- 
ciplined, saw  a  splendid  opportunity  for  pushing  their 
fortunes  in  the  distracted  and  faction  torn  condition  of 


63S 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PKESEXT. 


Ireland,  They  lielped  now  one  chief,  now  another, 
always  on  terms  of  payment  highly  advantageous  to 
themselves,  and  soon  rheir  marvellous  success  and  their 
daring  ambition  excited  the  jealousy  and  anger  of  King 
Henrv.  He  called  on  them  to  reiurn  to  England. 
Stronsibow  made  various  excuses  for  disobevino:,  and 
Henry,  to  the  great  satisfaction  of  the  Irish  princes,  an- 
nounced that  he  would  proceed  to  Ireland  in  person  to 
investigate  the  conduct  of  the  Xorman  adventurers. 
He  did  so  come  to  Ireland,  and  at  once  assumed  the 
role  of  arbitrator  or  authoritative  regulator  of  affairs, 
civil  and  ecclesiastical,  pretending,  as  to  the  latter  es- 
pecially, that  he  had  got  a  bull  from  his  countryman, 
Pope  Adrian,  commissioning  him  to  restore  order  in 
Ireland.  The  Irish  princes  did  not  quite  realize  all  that 
tliis  exercise  of  quasi-friendly  offices  involved,  until 
lom^  after  Henrv  had  returned  to  Enirland.  When 
thev  did,  that  is  to  sav,  when  tliev  found  the  Xornian 
auxiliaries  of  one  of  their  own  bodv,  converted  into  the 
garrison  of  a  foreign  king,  they  were  dismayed.  Some 
at  once  resisted  ;  others  diplomatized  ;  a  few  submitted. 
Some  felt  the  reality  of  the  change;  others  did  not. 
For  centuries  after  the  so-called  conquest' '  by  Henry 
II.,  most  of  the  native  cliiefs  ruled  their  principalities 
or  made  war  on  one  another,  just  as  they  did  before  a 
Korman  had  set  foot  on  the  Irish  shore.  Fitfully  but 
gradually  the  Anglo-Xormans  pushed  their  power  ;  yet 
it  was  not  until  the  close  of  the  sixteenth  century,  or 
more  than  four  hundred  years  after  Henry's  landing:, 
that  the  struirccle  of  native  Irish  sovereisrnty  acainst 
English  rule  closed  in  the  tacit  surrender  of  Ireland  to 
James  I. 

During  thelatter  half  of  the  last  century  of  theabove 
period,  a  new  element  of  antagonism  was  imported  into 
the  conflict.  Kelisrious  animosity  was  added  to  race- 
hatred  and  national  hostility.    The  Englisli  peers  and 


A    nutshell"  iiiSTonY  of  iiielain-d. 


039 


people  followed  Henry  YIIL,  into  tlie  Reformation  ; 
followed  Queen  Mary  out  of  it,  and  Queen  Elizabeth, 
into  it  again.  The  Irish,  on  the  other  hand,  clung  more 
devotedly  than  ever  to  the  Catholic  faith  ;  a  circum- 
stance of  contrast  whicli  lias  largely  contributed  ever 
since  to  keep  the  two  peoples  distinct,  and  which,  allied 
with  race  influences  and  national  traditions,  marks  each 
with  a  separate  individuality. 

With  the  reign  of  James  I.,  began  the  political 
system  which,  with  little  variation,  still  exists  in  the 
union  of  Ireland  under  one  crown  with  Scotland  and 
England.  England  came  in  by  succession  to  the  Scot- 
tish king,  and  by  a  remarkable  coincidence  or  concur- 
rence, Ireland  at  the  same  moment  virtually  surrendered 
to  the  sovereignty  of  a  Gaelic  prince,  sprung  from  a 
race  kindred  to  its  own.  Throughout  the  whole  Stuart 
period,  from  1600  to  1700,  the  national  feeling  and 
action  of  Ireland,  with  a  lo^'alty  fatal  to  Irish  welfare, 
were  displayed  on  the  side  of  the  dynasty  thus  accepted. 
In  the  victorious  rebellion  of  the  English  republicans 
against  the  duplicity  of  Charles  L,  as  well  as  in  the 
still  more  successful  English  revolt  against  the  despot- 
ism of  James  II.,  the  Irish  remained  steadfast  to  the 
royalist  cause  ;  and,  in  the  result,  paid  a  dreadful 
penalty  for  such  disastrous  fidelity.  The  soil  of  the 
country  was  declared  forfeit  by  the  existing  owners, 
and  was  parcelled  out  as  spoil  among  the  soldiery  of 
the  Cromwellian  and  Williamite  armies  ;  hundreds  of 
thousands  of  acres  were  bestowed  on  tlie  mistresses, 
court  favorites,  and  natural  offspring  of  William  and 
the  early  Hanoverian  princes  :  while  the  native  gentry, 
beggared  and  homeless,  were  banished  and  proscribed, 
and  the  general  body  of  the  people  reduced  to  a  condi- 
tion little  short  of  outlawry. 

Under  what  is  known  as  the  "penal  code''  fi'om  1700 
to  1775,  the  bulk  of  the  population  were  forbidden  to 


700 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


educate  their  cliildren.  to  attend  religions  worship,  to 
carry  arms,  to  learn  a  trade,  or  to  hold  jDropertv.  The 
schoolmaster  and  the  priest  had  each  a  price  on  his 
liead;  and  statutes  of  George  I.  and  George  II.  went  so 
far  as  to  make  it  felony  to  send  an  Irish  child  abroad 
to  receive  the  education  forbidden  at  home. 

There  was  one  circumstance,  which,  aj)art  from  the 
shocking  barbarity  of  the  "penal  code,''  has  made  it 
rankle  in  the  breasts  of  the  Irish  to  the  present  hour ; 
namely,  that  it  was  laid  ujion  them  in  flagrant  violation 
of  a  solemn  treaty  signed  between  the  English  and 
Irish  commanders,  duly  countersigned  by  royal  com- 
missioners on  King  William's  part,  at  the  close  of  the 
AVilliamite  struggle  in  1691.  Although  the  si)lendid 
army  of  Scandinavians,  Dutch,  Swiss,  Prussians,  Hugue- 
not-French, and  English,  which  the  Prince  of  Orange 
led  into  Ireland,  had  defeated  the  raw  levies  of  the 
Irish  royalists  at  the  Boyne,  and,  more  by  happy  ac- 
cident than  generalship,  driven  them  from  their  posi- 
tion at  Aughrim,  he  was  again  and  again  defeated  be- 
fore the  walls  of  Limerick,  which  city  was  defended  by 
General  Sarsfield,  in  command  of  the  Irish  armies  of 
-  King  James.  At  length,  AVilliam,  who  was  a  brave 
soldier  and  a  statesman,  saw  the  wisdom  of  arranging 
terms  with  such  a  foe  ;  and  accordingly,  on  October  3, 
1691,  articles  of  capitulation  were  negotiated  whereby 
the  Irish  army,  retaining  its  arms,  colors,  bands  and 
transport-stores,  marched  out  wirh  tiie  honors  of  war, 
free  to  enter  the  service  of  King  William  or  to  sail  for 
France,  where  King  James  now  resided  as  guest  and  ally 
of  Louis  Xiy. 

The  '-civil  articles"  of  the  treatv  of  Limerick  stipu- 
lated.  in  substance,  that  there  was  to  be  no  proscription, 
no  confiscation,  no  disarmament,  and  that  the  exercise 
of  the  Catholic  religion  should  be  as  free  as  it  had  been 
in  the  reign  of  King  Charles  II.    After  the  rough  draft- 


A     nutshell"  IILSTORY  of  IRELAND.  701 

had  been  agreed  iii^oii,  but  before  the  fair  copy  was 
signed  by  Sarsfield,  the  arrival  of  a  French  fleet  with 
considerable  aid  in  men,  money  and  stores  was  an- 
nounced to  the  Irisli  comiuander,  and  he  was  entreated 
not  to  sign  the  treaty  ;  he  replied  sorrowfully,  that  the 
news  reached  him  an  hour  too  late,  that  his  honor  and 
the  honor  of  Ireland  were  pledged  and  should  not  be 
broken. 

No  sooner,  however,  had  the  Irish  army  sailed  away 
to  France  than  the  treat}^  covenants,  despite  the  pro- 
tests and  endeavors  of  King  William,  were  cast  to  the 
winds.  Angered  at  the  idea  of  having  no  spoil  by  con- 
fiscation to  divide,  the  anti- Stuart  faction,  now  domi- 
nant in  the  Irish  parliament,  refused  to  approve  the 
king's  treaty,  and,  by  stopping  the  supplies,  com^Delled 
William  to  yield.  Thereupon  commenced  the  proscrip- 
tive  legislation,  known  as  the  "penal  code."  The 
more  severe  these  enactments  grew,  the  more  alarmed 
the  dominant  partly  became  lest  the  Irish  masses  should 
rebel  against  them;  and  thus  further  and  further  se- 
verity was  deemed  necessary,  as  repression  and  alarm 
acted  and  reacted  on  one  another.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
not  even  during  the  memorable  Scottish  risings  of  1715 
and  1745,  which  so  nearly  restored  the  Stuart  line,  did 
the  Irish  at  home  give  pretext  or  justification  for  such 
a  policy. 

The  self-expatriated  Irish  battalions,  however,  now 
serving  as  an  Irisli  brigade  in  the  service  of  France,  took 
heav}^  reprisals  on  the  Englisli  power,  confronting  it  on 
every  battle-field,  and  deciding  by  tlieir  impetuous  valor 
the  fortunes  of  manv  an  eventful  dav.  At  Fontenov, 
fought  May  11,  1742,  by  a  French  ainiy  of  45,000  men 
under  Marshal  Saxe,  in  presence  of  the  king  and  the 
dauphin,  against  an  English  force  of  65,000  men  under 
the  Duke  of  Cumberland,  victory  was  snatched  from 
the  British  commander  at  the  close  of  the  day  by  a  de- 


702 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


cisive  charge  of  the  Irish  regiments.  It  was  on  the  ar- 
rival of  the  despatches  which  announced  the  fate  of 
Fontenoy,  that  George- IL,  nuich  of  a  soldier  and  little 
of  a  bigot,  is  said  to  have  exclaimed,  Curse  upon  the 
laws  that  deprive  me  of  such  subjects." 

In  the  minds  of  many  besides  King  George,  a  reac- 
tion against  the  terrible  rigor  of  the  "penal  code"  had,  - 
by  this  time,  set  in;  and  events  Avere  drawing  near  which 
rendered  its  continuance  impossible.  According  to  the 
political  constitution  which  the  Anglo-]S"orman  sover- 
eigns conferred  on  their  colony  in  Ireland,  that  country 
was  annexed  to  the  British  crown,  but  not  j^laced  under 
the  legislative  action  of  the  English  parliament.  On 
the  contrary,  it  had  a  parliament  of  its  own,  supreme 
as  to  Irish  affairs.  When  Henry  VII.  was  strengthen- 
ing his  royal  prerogative  and  generally  centralizing  his 
government,  he  had  a  statute  passed  by  a  subservient 
Anglo-Irish  parliament  at  Drogheda,  known  as  "Poyn- 
ings  Law,"  rendering  the  Irish  parliament  subject  to 
the  control  of  the  English  legislature.  The  unconstitu- 
tionality of  this  law  was  always  asserted  and  "  Poyn- 
ings  Act"  was  disregarded  by  Irish  parliaments  in  the 
reigns  of  Charles  I.,  Charles  II.  and  James  II.  The 
Williamite  parliament  in  London,  however,  from  the 
first  claimed  the  power  to  bind  Ireland  ;  a  claim  from 
time  to  time  contested  by  jurists  and  public  writers  on 
the  Irish  side,  who,  though  thoroughly  Protestant,  and 
attached  to  the  new  dynasty  and  the  English  connec- 
tion, vehemently  repudiated  the  idea  of  such  subjection 
in  legislative  matters.  The  dispute  was  embittered  by 
the  manner  in  which  the  London  government  repressed 
Irish  trade  and  manufactures.  An  address  to  William 
III.,  from  English  manufacturers,  complaining  of  too 
successful  Irish  competition,  elicited  from  that  monarch 
a  remarkable  promise  that  he  would  do  all  that  in 
him  lay  to  discourage  manufactures  in  Ireland."  This 


A  "nutshell"  IIISTOHY  of  UiELAT^D.  703 


roynl  pledge,  nnliappily,  was  only  too  well  fulfilled. 
The  Irish  parliament  of  1719,  in  the  midst  of  its  penal 
legislation  against  the  conquered  Catholics,  openly  re- 
sisted the  doctrine  of  subordination.  The  Irish  House 
of  Lords  forbade  the  sheiiff  of  Kildare  to  execute  a 
decree'of  the  English  peers;  whereupon  the  latter  body 
retaliated  by  reaffirming  Poynings  Law"  in  still  more 
galling  terms. 

The  controvers}^,  with  little  respite,  went  on  up  to 
1775,  when  there  rolled  across  the  Atlantic  a  tocsin  of 
liberty  in  the  echoes  of  Bunker  Hill.  By  this  time  a 
patriot  party  had  appeared  in  the  Irish  parliament,  a 
parliament  in  which  no  Catholic  was  allowed  to  sit,  led 
by  Lord  Charlemont,  Lord  Kildare,  Flood,  Hussey- 
Burgh,  Sir  Lucius  O'Brien,  and  Ponsonby  ;  later  on  b}^ 
the  man,  the  splendor  of  whose  fame  truly  illumines 
this  page  of  Ireland's  history,  the  illustrious  Henry 
Grattan.  Encouraged  bv  the  conduct  of  the  American 
colonists,  they  grappled  boldly  with  the  oppressions 
and  corruptions  of  the  government ;  their  earliest  efforts 
being  devoted  successfully  to  the  liberation  of  Irish 
trade  from  the  fetters  that  had  crippled  and  well-nigh 
destroyed  it.  They  next  claimed  the  restoi  ation  of  the 
ancieut  freedom  of  the  Irish  Parliament.  King  George 
and  his  cabinet  resisted  wdiile  they  could,  but  the  con- 
cession was  inevitable.  Sorely  straitened  by  the  effort 
to  subjugate  Washington  and  his  colonial  levies,  the 
London  government  had  to  withdraw  the  troops  from 
Ireland,  which  was  now  garrisoned  and  guarded  by  a 
national  volunteer  army  of  150.000  men.  The  volunteers, 
wdio  were  citizens  as  well  as  soldiers,  enthusiastically 
sustained  the  movements  of  Grattan.  A  thoroughly 
national  spirit  was  aroused  throughout  the  island. 
The  long-oppressed  Catholic  millions  clasped  hands 
with*the  long-dominant  Protestant  colony  or  a'ariison. 
With  the  capitulation  of  the  British  armies  to  Washing- 


704 


IRELAND,  PAST  AKD  PRESENT. 


ton,  and  the  recognition  of  American  independence, 
vanished  the  last  hope  of  successfully  combating  the 
Irish  demand  for  a  free  parliament.  A  solemn  treaty, 
in  the  form  of  a  statute  of  the  British  parliament.  22 
Geo.  III.,  chap.  28,  renounced  'Morever"  the  usurpation 
of  ''Povnins-s  Law,"  and  covenanted  that  the  ancient 
constitutional  right  of  Ireland  to  be  bound  only  by  laws 
of  a  free  Irish  parliament  should  henceforth  be  "un- 
questioned and  unquestionable." 

The  effect  of  this  measure  of  national  liberty  seemed 
to  be  magicaL  In  the  ten  years  that  followed.  Irish 
trade  and  commerce  expanded  in  a  degree  never  known 
before  or  since.  The  spirit  of  tolerance  also  for  a  mo- 
ment  prevailed,  and  some  of  the  most  grievous  of  the 
penal  laws  were  repealed.  The  country  seemed  to  go 
forward  on  the  road  to  progress,  by  leaps  and  bounds, 
under  the  guardianship  of  the  fi'ee  parliament  won  by 
Grattan  and  the  volunteers. 

This  great  victory,  as  well  as  the  previous  recoveiy 
of  commercial  freedom,  was  long  retarded  bv  the  re- 
stricted  franchise  and  anomalous  usages  under  which 
the  parliament  of  the  period  was  returned.  The  repre- 
sentation of  many  boroifghs  was  literall}'  owned  by 
aristocratic  proprietors  ;  and  presentation  to  a  seat  in 
the  House  of  Commons  was  bought  and  sold  like  any 
other  marketable  title  or  commodity.  The  national 
party,  under  Grattan,  now  directed  their  attention  to  a 
reform  of  a  system  so  fatal  to  public  liberty.  The 
British  minister,  on  the  other  hand,  the  American  war 
being  over,  had  his  hands  free,  and  he  determined  to 
maintain  a  svstem  which  would  enable  him  in  a  few 
years,  by  the  expenditure  of  money  in  purchase  of 
seats,  to  subvert  all  that  Grattan  had  accomplished, 
and  overturn  the  treaty  arrangement  of  22  Geo.  III., 
chap.  28. 

The  struggle  progressed  for  seven  years  with  increas- 


A      nutshell"  IIISTOllY  OF  lilELAND.  705 

ing  earnestness  on  each  side,  when  suddenly  an  event 
occurred  which  tlirew  the  great  game  totally  into  the 
liands  of  the  British  minister,  and  swept  the  Irish 
popular  party  into  a  situation  that  proved  disastrous. 
The  French  revohition  of  1789  burst  I'orth  like  the  blaze 
of  a  tremendous  conflagration.  The  governing  classes 
all  over  Europe  were  otunned  with  horror  and  dismay. 
The  friends  of  popular  liberty  hailed  the  event  with 
joy.  In  Ireland,  the  property-classes,  flinging  all  other 
considerations  aside,  rallied  to  the  side  of  governmental 
authority,  so  as  to  strengthen  the  bulwark  against  re- 
publican principles.  The  government,  thus  reinfoj'ced, 
at  once  assumed  a  stern  and  haughty  attitude  towards 
anything  in  the  nature  of  popular  discontent  or 
democratic  manifestations.  The  Irish  national  reform 
movement,  after  struggling  for  a  few  j'ears  with  such  a 
state  of  things,  eventually  broke  to  j^ieces ;  its  leaders 
differing  widely  on  the  new  doctrines  or  principles 
launched  in  Paris.  Some  sided  witli,  the  government 
rather  than  embarrass  the  arm  of  authority  at  such  a 
moment;  others  were  for  pushing  the  movement  for- 
ward on  still  broader  lines  ;  while  many,  Grattan  him- 
self included,  retired  from  Mie  scene,  as  if  foreseeing 
what  was  about  to  happen. 

The  advanced  section,  driven  from  their  open  move- 
ment, all  aflame  with  the  new  gospel  of  liberty,  equality 
and  fraternity,  and  infuriated  by  the  English  minister's 
design  of  betraying  or  subverting  the  settlement  of 
1782,  enrolled  themselves  in  a  secret  revolutionary  con- 
spiracy for  the  overthrow  of  British  rule  in  Ireland. 
Although  their  main  reliance  was  naturally -on  the  bulk 
of  the  population,  who  were  Catholics,  the  original 
founders  and  earliest  adherents  of  the  enterprise  were 
Protestants,  chiefly  Ulster  Presbyterians.  Later  on, 
men  of  all  religious  creeds,  and  unquestionably  men  of 
the  purest  motives  and  loftiest  character,  embraced  the 


706 


IRELAND,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


design.  Lord  Edward  Fitzgerald,  son  of  the  duke  of 
Leinster,  was  at  the  head  of  affairs  ;  its  ablest  organizer, 
Theobald  Wolfe  Tone,  being  stationed  in  Paris  as  ac- 
credited agent  or  ambassador  to  the  French  directory. 

The  government  early  discerned  the  advantage  which 
an  abortive  insurrection  would  give  them  in  persuad- 
ing the  property-classes  to  draw  closer  to  the  centre 
of  power  and  authority"  by  consolidating  the  parlia- 
meiits;  and  for  a  time  the  proceedirgs  of  the  revolu- 
tionists w^ere  view-ed  with  secret  satisfaction.  By  the 
end  of  179G,  however,  this  feeling  gave  place  to  alarm 
Avhen  it  was  found  that  the  French  directory  had  de- 
termined  seriously  to  assist  the  Irish  party.  This  de- 
termination was  made  plain  by  the  dispatch  of  a 
IDOwerful  expedition  under  General  Hoche  toward  the 
close  of  the  year.  A  storm  dispersed  Hoclie's  flotilla, 
only  a  few  vessels  of  which  reached  the  bay  of  Ban  try, 
on  the  south-west  coast  of  Ireland. 

The  government  now  sought  to  force  the  hand  of  Lord 
Edward,  by  compelling  him  to  take  the  field  before 
another  expedition  could  be  prepared.    To  this  end 

martial  law"  was  proclaimed,  and  shocking  means 
■were  used  to  goad  the  i^opulace  quickly  into  a  rising. 

While  it  was  yet  uncertain  how  far  these  tactics 
would  succeed,  an  overwhelming  blow^  fell  on  the  revo- 
lutionary party.  Their  central  council  or  directory 
Avere  surprised  and  seized  in  the  very  act  of  deliberat- 
ing on  the  question  of  immediate  operations;  and  a 
few  days  subsequently  Lord  Edward  was  captured, 
after  a  desperate  struggle,  in  which  he  was  mortally 
wounded.  "  Less  by  concerted  action  than  as  an  impulse 
of  desperation,  the  insurrection  now  broke  forth  in  four 
or  five  of  the  Irish  counties — Antrim,  Wexford,  Wick- 
low,  Kildare  and  Carlow.  In  Wexford  the  outburst  was 
almost  entirely  the  result  of  the  forcing  process  above  re- 
ferred to.    The  people,  half  armed  and  wholly  undis- 


A  '^]SUTSHELL''  IIISTOKY  of  IIIELAND.  707 

ciplined,  took  the  field  in  rude  array.  Destitute  as 
they  were  of  military  leaders,  equijmient  or  resources, 
they,  nevertheless,  tlirougli  several  months,  fought  a 
tierce  campaign,  which  the  entire  available  strength  of 
the  government  forces  barely  sufficed  eventually  to 
subdue. 

Like  all  other  bursts  of  popular  passion  this  rising 
was  marked  by  some  lamentable  excesses;  or  ratLer, 
in  a  struggle  in  wdiich  no  quarter  for  rebels''  was  the 
watchword  on  the  one  side,  and  in  which  discipline  in 
the  popular  camp  could  be  but  slender,  episodes  of 
savage  vengeance  were  in  a  sense  inevitable. 

The  rising  in  Ulster  had  been  quickly  and  easily 
suppressed,  and  all  the  other  counties  of  Ireland  lay 
quiescent  during  the  Wexford  revolt.  Disaffection  and 
desire  to  rebel  was  intense;  but  a  conviction  prevailed 
that  insurrection  single-handed  against  Great  Britain 
must  absolutely  fail,  and  another  French  expedition 
was  expected.  When  it  did  arrive,  under  General 
Humbert,  who  landed  at  Killala,  in  the  north-west  of 
Ireland,  in  August,  1798,  with  a  force  of  a  little  over 
1,000  men,  the  government  was  flushed  with  victory 
and  the  populace  utterly  overawed.  Humbert  defeated 
a  force  of  nearly  5,000  opposing  British  troops  at 
Castlebar;  but  eventually  had  to  surrender  to  an  over- 
whelming force  under  Lord  Cornwallis. 

The  after  scenes  of  this  insurrection  were  barely  less 
tragic  than  the  struggle  in  the  field.  The  scaffold  and 
the  executioner  long  plied  their  dreadful  work,  com- 
pleting what  the  fusillade  began. 

It  was  at  such  a  moment  Pitt  produced  his  long-medi- 
tated scheme  for  breaking  the  treaty  ol*  1782,  and  abolish- 
ing the  Irish  parliament.  Even  amid  the  gloomy  horrors 
of  1799  his  proposal  was  at  tirst  defeated  in  the  Irish 
parliament;  the  constitutional  nationalists,  underGrat- 
tan,  Curran,   Charlemont,  Parnell,    Ponsonby,  and 


70S 


IRELAXD,  PAST  AXD  PP.ESEXT. 


Plnnkett,  raaking  a  Inst  desperate  effort  of  resistnnce. 
By  the  next  year,  however,  Pitt  had  expended  nearly 
£2,000,000  in  buying  np  wliat  were  called  proprietary 
boroughs,"  and  otherwise  purchasing  votes  sufficient 
to  secure  a  majority,  and  in  1800  his  scheme  of  union" 
was  carried  through. 

B}^  til  is  time  Bonaparte  had  become  the  terror,  as  he 
subsequently  very  nearly  became  the  conqueror,  of 
Europe.  England  alone  sitccessfully  defied  and  vic- 
toriously encountered  him.  On  English  soil  alone,  it 
it  may  be  said,  constitutional  government  for  the  time 
dared  to  exist  in  the  old  hemisphere.  For  fifteen  years 
all  other  political  issues  seemed  abandoned  or  forgotten 
in  view  of  the  titanic  struggle  which  culminated  and 
closed  at  Waterloo. 

Beyond  a  madly  lioi^eless  attempt  of  the  youthful 
enthusiast,  Robert  Emmett,  in  1803,  to  renew  the  insur- 
rectionary enterprise  of  1798,  Ireland  may  be  said  to 
have  lain  sullenly  dormant  through  the  eventful  years 
that  saw  the  meteoric  course  of  Napoleon. 

"When  next  an  Irish  question  challenged  public  at- 
tention, new  elements  of  political  power,  new  leaders, 
new  tactics,  came  into  view. 

Hitherto  the  Irish  Catholics,  nine-tenths  of  the  popula- 
tion,  being  forbidden  the  rights  of  citizenship,  had  to 
'Impend  for  public  advocacy  on  those  noble-minded 
Pro'estants,  like  Grattanand  Ciirran  and  Parnell,  who, 
from  a  pure  love  of  justice,  espoused  their  cause, 
'riie  Ireland  which  had  legal  or  political  existence  in 
I  he  eifjrhteenth  centurv,  was  merelv  the  handful  of 
Anglo-Irish  -Protestants  settled  in  the  country.  The 
njillions  of  Celtic  bondsmen  around  them  counted  for 
nothing  in  the  state,  except  as  material  for  taxation. 
The  bondsmen  now  arose  and  strode  into  the  political 
arena,  to  determine  their  fuvn  fortunes.  The  political 
Ireland  that  appeared  with  the  nineteenth  century  was 


A     nutshell"'  inSTOUY  OF  IPwELAXD. 


709 


a  Celtic  Ireland  ;  or,  rather,  an  Ireland  that  excluded 
none  and  embraced  all  Irish- born  men  of  whatever  race 
or  class  or  creed.  The  question  of  Catholic  emancipa- 
tion had  early  enlisted  the  efforts  of  Grattan  and  other 
of  the  Protestant  patriot  leaders  in  Ireland,  and  even 
in  1799  liad  made  such  way  in  England  that  Pitt  pledged 
himself  to  make  it  one  of  the  first  measui  es  the  united 
pax'liament  would  pass.  George  111.  absolutely  re- 
fused, however,  to  entertain  the  question,  and  it  was 
put  aside.  Forth  from  the  ranks  of  the  Irish  Catholics 
there  came  a  leader  of  their  own  race  and  faith,  destined 
to  make  king  and  cabinet  alike  feel  his  power.  This 
was  Daniel  O'Connell,  who,  for  nearly  half  a  century, 
was  the  foremost  political  tigure  in  Irish  history.  He 
aroused  and  combined  the  njasses  of  the  people  ;  he 
covered  the  country  with  the  network  of  a  vast  organiza- 
tion, and  soon  five  millions  of  people,  fired  with  en- 
thusiasm and  determined  to  be  free,  were  disciplined  to 
obey  liis  will. 

The  government  sternly  combated  the  movement  ; 
forbade  it,  proclaimed  it,  prosecuted  it,  punished  it — • 
all  in  vain.  O'Connell  was  no  sooner  suppressed  in  one 
shape  than  he  reappeared  in  another.  Again  and  again 
the  king  and  the  government  declared  that  no  conces- 
sion could  be  made  to  demagogues  and  agitators  ;  that 
the  law  would  be  vindicated,  and  established  institu- 
tions in  church  and  state  upheld.  Although  no  actual 
outbreak  occurred,  the  state  of  affairs  in  Ireland  was 
critical  in  the  extreme.  In  1829  the  Dnke  of  Welling- 
ton, who  had  taken  office  expiessh^  on  a  pledge  of  o}> 
position  to  emancipation,  announced  to  the  king  tliat  it 
was  a  choice  between  its  concession  or  civil  war — civil 
war  in  which  a  vast  ))ody  of  English  popular  opinion 
would  side  with  the  Irish  i^eople,  and  in  which  tlie 
Irish  regiments  of  the  army  dare  not  be  called  upon  to 
act  against   their  countrymen.    King,  cabinet,  and 


710 


IKEL'AXD,  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


IDai'liament  forthwith  saw  the  question  in  a  new  light, 
and  the  penal  code  was  in  effect  ex^junged  from  the 
statute-book. 

From  this  period  may  be  said  to  date  a  series  of 
efforts  on  tlie  part  of  British  statesmen  to  grajjple  with 
the  more  prominent  or  pressing  of  Irish  grievances  ; 
seldom  or  never,  however,  until  popular  complaint  of 
them,  long  neglected  or  resisted,  had  developed  into 
disorder,  disaff'ecrion  and  violence. 

Between  1829  and  1835  the  country  was  convulsed 
with  a  struggle  against  "tithes."  The  Protestant 
clergy  were  authorized  to  levy  on  the  agricultural  in- 
habitants, nearly  all  of  them  Catholics,  a  tenth  of  the 
produce  of  the  land.  After  three  or  four  years  of 
stormy  agitation,  disfigured  by  deplorable  outrage  and 
violence,  the  people  at  length  combined  in  a  national 

strike"  against  tithes.  This  proved  effectual.  A  law 
was  passed  abolishing  tithes  in  form  ;  that  is  to  say, 
adding  them  to  the  landlord's  rent,  and  compelling  the 
landlord,  to  whom  the  amount  was  paid  in  ]-ent,  to  pay 
it  over  to  the  clergy  minus  twenty-live  per  cent  for  the 
trouble  of  collection. 

These  victories  encouraged  O'Connell  to  undertake 
an  enterprise  more  serious  and  more  formidable  than 
any  he  had  yet  attempted,  namely,  an  endeavor  to  re- 
cover the  separate  parliamentary  constitution  of  Ire- 
land, subverted  by  Pitt  in  1800,  or,  as  it  was  called,  to 
''repeal  the  union."  The  Irish  masses  were  now  full 
of  confidence  in  the  ability  of  their  leader  to  accom- 
plisli  anything  he  took  in  hand.  Their  social  and 
physical  condition  was  still  painfully  low.  The  grind- 
ing exactions  of  exorbitant  land-rent  left  the  agricul- 
tural population,  as  a  royal  commission  of  inquiry 
under  Lord  Devon  declared  them  to  be,  "  the  worst 
housed,  the  worst  fed,  and  the  worst  clad  peasantry  in 
Europe."    They  retained,  however,  the  hoi)eful  buoy- 


A  '^nutshell"  iiistoky  of  Iceland. 


711 


aiicv  of  their  Celtic  nature,  and  the  marvellous  success 
of  the  total  abstinence  or  "  temperance"  movement 
under  Father  Matthew  (a  Catholic  priest  of  Cork  city) 
had  enormously  elevated  their  morale.  The  abolition 
of.  the  Irish  parliament  in  1800  had  at  the  time  been 
vehemently  resisted  by  the  ultra-Protestant  party  in 
Ireland;  but  when,  in  1840,  O'Connell,  the  Catholic 
leader,  took  up  the  question  of  its  recovery,  it  was 
found  that  their  attitude  had  totally  changed.  The 
parliament  and  the  nation  which  they  had  contended 
for  was  one  from  which  Papists  were  excluded.  So  far 
from  favoring  legislative  restoration  now  that  the  Catho- 
lics had  been  emancipated,  they  ardently  implored  the 
government  to  maintain  the  union,  and  not  deliver  them 
up  to  ''popish  ascendancy," 

O'Connell's  movement,  therefore,  though  it  was  sus- 
tained by  more  than  three-fourths  of  the  people  of  Ire- 
land, encountered  from  the  outset  the  mistrust,  the 
dread  or  the  hostility  of  the  Irish  Protestants.  Thti 
full  power  of  England  was  pledged  to  oppose  it  as  an 
attempt  to  dismember  the  empire.  The  Irish  leader 
found  himself  in  a  critical  position.  The  government, 
so  far  from  yielding  to  the  popular  demand,  plainly 
meant  to  encounter  it  by  force.  Were  England  en- . 
gaged  at  that  moment  in  any  serious  foreign  complica- 
tion, concession  would  have  been  inevitable.  But  never 
in  her  history  was  she  more  great,  more  powerful,  or 
more  strong.  She  was  at  peace  with  all  foreign  nations, 
and,  possessed  of  a  giant's  strength,  was  ready  to  use 
it  in  stamping  out  onceand  forever  this  dangerous  Irish 
idea  of  national  autonomy.  O'Connell's  embarrass- 
ment was  all  the  greater  because  there  had  now  grown 
up  around  him  a  race  of  young  men  who  scorned  his 
exaggerated  love  of  peaceful  ways  of  moral  suasion, 
and  who  held  the  lawfulness  of  Ireland  recovering  the 
right  she  claimed  by  armed  resort  if  practicable. 


712 


IRELAXD,  PAST  AND  PKESENT. 


This  conflict  between  the  ''moral  force"  and  phy- 
sical force''  principles  of  wliat  were  callt^d  resj^ectively 
the  "Old  Ireland"  and  ''Young  Ireland"  parties,  rent 
the  great  Irish  movement  in  twain. 

In  the  midst  of  the  controversy  there  fell  on  the 
conntry  a  calamity  that  buried  all  political  thought  or 
effort  for  the  time.  This  was  the  Irish  famine  of  1847- 
49,  In  the  autumn  of  1846  the  potato  crop,  which 
formed  almost  the  sole  suy^port  of  the  population,  was 
struck  with  blight  and  rotted  in  thegronnd.  All  could 
see  the  awful  consequences  that  were  at  hand ;  yet  the 
action  of  the  government  was  disastrously  tardy,  cir- 
cumlocutory, blundering  and  impotent.  The  people 
perished  in  hundreds  of  thousands  amid  scenes  of  an- 
guish and  horror  beyond  hnman  power  adequately  to 
portray.  Howsoever  culpable  the  inefficient  action  of 
the  government  in  coping  with  the  difficulty,  the  con- 
duct of  the  English  people  was  truly  noble.  Thej'' 
poured  princely  subscriptions  into  the  treasuries  of 
various  relief-associations,  and  did  the  best  that  private 
effort  could  achieve  to  mitio:ate  the  dreadful  affliction. 
Nearly  every  country  in  the  world  joined  in  the  Samari- 
tan endeavor  ;  but  foremost  and  first — far  outstripping 
all  the  rest,  England  included — was  the  land  that  long 
had  been  the  free  asylum  and  happy  home  of  expatriated 
Irishmen,  the  United  States  of  America. 

O'Coiinell  died,  aged  and  heart-broken,  in  May,  1847. 

In  Februarv.  1848,  revolution  in  Paris  once  more  sent 
the  impulse  of  insurrection  through  Europe;  and  once 
more  Ireland  yielded  to  its  influence.  The  young  Ire- 
land party  took  "the  field,  or  rather  vainly  attemj^ted 
to  do  so,  under  William  Smith  O'Brien.  The  leaders 
of  this  abortive  movement  w^ere  anything  but  good  revo- 
lutionists. They  were  men  of  genius,  poets,  scholars, 
artists,  orators;  men  of  purest  and.  loftiest  aims,  fired 
with  the  generous  enthusiasm  of  youth,  maddened  by  • 


JAMES  CAREY.  The  Informer. 


PATRICK  O  DONNELL. 

Executed  at  Lonclon  D     17U,  1883.  for  Shooti. 
^aiey,  tlie  Informer. 


or 


Oh!  may  that  noble  spirit 

Soon  each  Iri^hhearrpossess, 

To  iiivr''  1*'  escape 
1  o  leave  a  traitor  less. 


A     NUTSHELL IIISTORY  07  ir.ELAXB.  713 

the  famine  scenes  around  them.  But  thev  were  Uiterlv 
incompetent  as  military  consj)irators,  and  their  attempt 
broke  down  on  tlie  threshokl.  It  cost  Ireland,  how- 
ever, a  heavy  penalty  in  the  dispersion  of  a  school  of 
intellectual  culture  and  activit3\  even  the  early-checked 
literary  labors  of  which  have  left  a  deep  imprint  on  the 
literature  and  the  politics  of  that  country. 

There  followed  upon  the  famine  of  1847  and  the  abor- 
tive insurrection  of  1848,  a  period  of  utter  prostration. 
To  the  dreadful  havoc  of  the  famine  there  was  now 
added  wholesale  eviction  and  expatriation  of  the  ruined 
tenantry.  In  many  parts  of  the  island  "clearances," 
as  they  were  called,  swept  away  the  entire  human 
population  of  the  district,  in  order  that  vast  bullock- 
ranges,  sheep-runs,  or  grouse-moors,  might  take  the 
place  of  homesteads  and  villages.  The  human  suffering 
involved  in  this  policy  can  only  be  estimated  by  those 
who  know  how  passionately  the  Irish  peasant  clings  to 
the  spot,  however  humble,  which  has  been  the  birth- 
lilace  and  the  home  of  his  forefathers.  In  truth,  the 
eviction-scenes  of  that  period,  1849  to  1860,  rendered 
inevitable  the  events  that  have  convulsed  Irish  society 
for  the  last  twenty  vears.  Hundreds  of  thousands  of 
the  evicrion-victims  perished  by  the  roadsides  or  in  the 
pauper  barracks.  Other  hundreds  of  thousands  fled  or 
were  deported  to  America.  They  went  with  bursting 
hearts,  ready  to  embrace  any  enterprise,  no  matter  how 
wild  and  hopeless,  that  promised  vengeance  on  the 
power  that  had  driven  them  forth. 

As  early  as  1858  some  of  the  exiled  Young  Ireland 
leaders  conceived  the  idea  of  utilizini^  for  revolutionarv 
purposes  this  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  American  Irish. 
The  result  was  the  organization  of  the  Feninn  conspir- 
acy by  Mr.  Jame-^  Stephens  and  Col.  John  O'Mnhoney. 
Keenly  alive  to  the  cause  of  failure  in  1848.  the  Fenian 
leaders  aimed  at  careful  preparation  and  extensive 


714 


lEELAXD,  PAST  AND  PPwESENT. 


military  organization.  Notwithstanding  the  strong 
opposition  of  the  Catholic  clergy,  and  the  dissuasions 
or  protests  of  those  nationalists  who  believed  insurrec- 
tion impracticai)le  and  mischievous,  they  pushed  their 
enrolment  with  intense  ardor  and  earnestness,  and  suc- 
ceeded in  establishing  the  most  wide-spread  and  for- 
midable revohitionarv  movement  known  in  Irisli  history 
since  1798.  In  armament  they  were  utterly  deiicient, 
but  their  organization  and  discipline  were  on  the  whole 
remarkabh'  perfect.  The  government  throughout  was 
kei)t  well-informed  by  its  spies  in  the  conspiracy,  and 
in  1865  swooped  suddenly  down  on  the  leaders  in 
Dublin,  seizino:  the  subordinates  simultaneously  all 
over  the  c(»untrv. 

The  oriraiiizarion  never  recovered  from  this  fatal  blow, 
although  for  fully  two  years  subsequently  ic  made 
desperate  and  peisistent  efforts  to  reconstitute  itself; 
and  at  length,  in  March,  1867,  gave  the  signal  for  a 
national  uprising.  The  moment  the  long  formidable 
secret  society  came  out  into  the  open,  its  great  speW  was 
shattered.  It  was  found  to  be  just  as  deficient  as  the 
much-blamed  Young  Ireland  movement  of  1848,  in  the 
most  elementary  conditions  of  militarv  existence.  The 
fortitude,  devotion  and  heroism,  exhibited  by  its  mem- 
bers in  the  dock  and  in  the  dungeon,  enlisted  for  them 
the  sympathy  of  thousands  who  had  condemned  that 
enterprise  ;  and  even  among  English  statesmen  the  feel- 
ing spread  that  the  Irish  question  must  be  dealt  with 
by  remedial,  not  by  repressive,  measures. 

Mr.  Gladstone,  as  leader  of  the  liberal  party  of  Eng- 
land, gave  eloquent  expressi{m  to  this  conviction  ;  and 
announced  that,  to  begin  with,  the  Irish  state  church, 
as  a  badge  of  conquest  and  an  oppressive  burden,  must 
be  swept  away.  In  the  general  election  of  1868  he  was 
returned  to  office  with  an  enormous  majority,  and  well 
fulfilling  his  promise,  he  forthwith  carried  through 


A  '^nutshell'*  iiistoky  of  ieeland. 


715 


parliament  an  act  for  disendowing  and  disestablishing 
the  Irish  Protestant  state  church.  Practically  th(^ 
measure  was  one  of  disestablishment  alone,  for  as  to 
endowment,  he  was  able  so  skilfully  to  arrange  the 
financial  portion  of  his  scheme  that  not  a  shilling  less 
income  than  before  was  secured  to  the  church. 

This  reform  he  followed  up  in  1870  by  an  act  which 
aimed  at  settling  the  still  more  important  and  much 
more  exigent  question  of  land  tenure  in  Ireland.  The 
latter  attempt  fell  lamentably  short  of  the  real  neces- 
sities of  the  situation  ;  a  shortcoming  which  occasioned 
great  disappointment. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  twelvemonth  that  followed  on  the 
disestablishment  of  the  church,  there  ensued  the  most 
remarkable  transformation  ever  witnessed  in  Irish 
politics.  The  Protestant  "conservative"  party — peers 
and  commoners,  landlords,  merchants,  and  aristocrats 
— reached  out  hands  to  the  Catholic  millions,  and 
openly  offered  to  join  them  in  a  national  movement  for 
the  restoration  of  Irish  parliamentary  index:)endence. 
This,  no  doubt,  was  in  some  degree  through  resentment 
on  their  part  against  England  for  selfishly  throwing 
them  over  aud  repealing  the  union  between  the 
churches.  But  it  was  also  largel}^  through  genuine 
conviction  that  a  wise  compromise  between  total  separa- 
tion b}^  rebellion,  and  national  extinction  by  the  domina- 
tion of  tiie  London  parliament,  ought  to  be  presented 
to  the  people  so  plainly  determined  not  to  acquiesce  in 
the  existing  state  of  things. 

Mr.  Isaac  Butt,  an  Irish  Protestant  barrister  of 
great  eminence,  may  be  said  to  liave  negotiated  the  re- 
markable alliance  or  fusion  of  parties,  creeds,  and 
sections,  which,  under  the  name  of  the  "Irish  Home 
Rule  Association,"  made  its  ai)pearance  in  1870.  The 
programme  of  this  movement  was,  on  the  one  hand, 
reconciliation  between  Catholic  and  Protestant  Irish- 


71G 


IRELAND,  PAST  AXD  PRESENT. 


men,  between  peers  and  pensanfs,  liberals  and  con- 
servatives; and,  on  the  other,  reconciliation  between 
Ireland  and  England,  on  the  basis  of  a  federal  union, 
whereby  Ireland  should  enjoy  such  legislative  and  ad- 
ministrative autonomy  as  is  possessed  by  a  state  in  the 
American  republic. 

Even  among  the  Fenian  or  separatist  party  this  ex- 
periment was  favorably  regarded  as  presenting  the 
minimum  of  a  satisfactory  compromise,  and  in  a  few 
years  the  movement  took  such  hold  on  Irish  public 
opinion  that,  tried  by  every  test  known  to  constitu- 
tional countries — parliamentary,  municiiDal,  and  town- 
ship elections — the  national  will  has,  ever  since,  jenT 
by  year,  with  more  and  more  determination  declared 
itself  for  "Home  Rule,''  as  the  scheme  is  called. 

In  1872  the  old  system  of  election  procedure  was  re- 
X^laced  by  ballot-voting,  whereby  for  the  fiist  time  the 
Irish  people  were  enabled  freely  to  manifest  their  views 
in  the  election  of  representatives.  In  the  next  follow- 
ing general  election  of  members  to  the  imperial  parlia- 
ment in  1874.  the  home-rule  partj^  carried  fifty-seven 
out  of  one  hundred  and  three  Irish  seats.  In  the 
elections  of  1880,  they  carried  sixtj^-five  ;  and  it  is  com- 
puted that  on  the  next  occasion  they  will  return  at  least 
seventv-five  or  eighty  members. 

Despite  the  strong  parliamentary  mnjority  from  Ire- 
land in  favor  of  national  autonomy,  the  cabinet  of  Mr. 
Disraeli  in  1874,  and  down  to  1880,  backed  by  their 
j)owerful  following  in  parliament,  impeiiously  refused 
every  measure  of  reform  or  amelioration  which  the 
Irish  part}''  demanded.  With  especial  earnestness  and 
perseverance  the  Irish  members,  year  by  year,  besought 
the  government  to  deal  with  the  land-question  as  one 
which  might  any  day  lead  to  a  catastroj^he.  Their 
warnings  were  disregarded  ;  their  efforts  at  remedial 
legislation  were  haughtily  overborne  by  enormous  ma-  • 


A  ''nutshell"  IILSTORY  of  IRELAND. 


717 


jorities  of  British  and  Scotch  votes.  In  1878  the  harvest 
was  a  failure  in  Ireland  and  in  England.  In  1879  it  was 
almost  a  total  loss  in  the  former  country;  and  a  gloom 
of  terror  darkened  the  land.  A  rej^itition  of  1847 
seemed  at  hand.  Now,  however,  there  was  seen  a 
startling  change  in  the  spirit  and  action  of  the  people, 
as  compared  with  their  conduct  in  that  year.  In  stern 
and  resolute  toues  they  announced  that  the  subsistence 
of  a  toiling  population  was  a  first  charge  on  the  land  ; 
and  on  the  earliest  whisper  of  landlord  preparations  for 
a  gigantic  eviction  campaign,  the  whole  island  sprang 
to  action,  with  a  cry  that  the  hour  had  come  when  feudal 
landlordism  must  fall. 

Throughout  1880  and  1881  there  raged  in  Ireland  a 
fierce  and  implacable  sopial  war,  with  such  evil  con- 
comitants of  incidental  disorder,  violence,  and  outrage, 
as  usually  attend  upon  popular  convulsions. 

Mr.  Gladstone  and  the  liberal  party  were  restored  once 
more  to  power  by  the  general  election  of  1880.  In  1881 
the  great  English  statesman  took  the  Irish  question  in 
hand  ;  bringing  in  a  coercion  bill  in  January,  and  a 
land  bill  in  April  of  that  year.  The  former  added  fuel 
to  the  flame  in  Ireland,  by  its  Draconian  severity,  ex- 
ceeding anything  known  outside  of  Russia.  The  land 
bill,  on  the  other  hand,  was  a  measure  of  noble  and 
comprehensive  character.  It  did  not  "disendow  and 
disestablish"  Irish  landlordism,  but  it  stripped  it  of 
the  despotic  power  it  had  so  mercilessly  and  disastrously 
nsed  in  the  past.  Justlj''  irritated  by  the  coercion  act, 
and  bitterly  disappointed  that  the  new  land  law  did  not 
wliollv  abolish  landlordism,  the  Irisli  tenant-farmers 
at  first  received  the  latter  measure  in  a  sullen  and 
almost  hostile  temper.  The  disposition  manifested  by- 
Mr.  Gladstone,  however,  in  1882,  to  supplement  its 
beneficent  provisions  wherever  needful,  so  that  the 
measure  might  accomplish   before  many  years  the 


718  lEELAT^D,  PAST  AKD  PEESENT. 

establisliment  of  a  '*  peasant  ]Droprietnry'' — as  originally 
proposed  by  Mr.  Parnell  and  the  Irish  Land  League — 
may  be  3aid  to  have  brought  the  iieoi)le  ol'  Ireland  to 
recognize  in  the  land  act  of  1881  a  cliarter  of  liberty 
and  a  guarantee  of  a  peaceful  and  happj^  future. 

The  cliaracter,  temperament,  and  habits  ol  the  Irish 
people  have  naturally  been  influenced  by  vicissitudes 
of  their  stormy  history.  Among  the  peasantry  the 
regretable  effects  of  their  furtive  life  in  the  penal  times 
can  even  still  be  discovered  in  various  ways.  It  is  only 
within  the  past  half-century  that  the  two  races — the 
Anglo-Irish  and  Celtic-Irish — have  fused  in  any  marked 
degree.  The  people  are  brave,  naturally  quick-witted 
and  intelligent,  hardy,  laborious,  inured  to  toil,  patient 
in  privation,  hospitable,  warm  in  their  afl'ections, 
devoted  in  their  fidelity  to  friends;  but  dangerously 
fierce  and  quick  in  anger,  easily  aroused  and  quickly 
allayed.  Their  deepl}^  religious,  fervor,  and  tbeir  pas- 
sionate love  of  country,  are,  perhaps,  the  most  promi- 
nent traits  in  their  character.  In  public  life  they  are 
capable  of  great  achievements  under  the  influence  of 
enthusiasm,  hope,  or  confidence  ;  but  are  impatient  of 
results,  and  exhibit  a  lack  of  plodding  perseverance 
and  cool  methodical  action.  In  fine,  the  buoyant  and 
volatile  temperament  of  the  Celt  largely  prevails  ;  yet 
their  more  extensive  intercourse  with  other  peoples  of 
late  has  considerably  developed  in  them  a  steadiness 
and  seriousness  of  purpose  which  has  attracted  general 
attention. 

Since  1830  education  has  made  great  progress  among 
the  Irish  people  ;  and  their  material  condition  has  on 
the  whole  been  vastly  improved  ;  but  the  start  was 
from  a  point  painfully  low.  It  must  be  long  before 
they  can  fully  recover  from  the  dreadful  effects  of  those 
not-remote  centuries  during  which  education  was 
*'  felony  by  law."    Throughout  the  period  that  gave  to 


A  '^NUTSHELL''  IIISTOKY  OF  IKELAND.  719 

English  literature  tlie  works  of  Spenser,  Shakespeare, 
Milton,  Bacon,  and  "rare  Ben  Jonson,"  of  Dry  den. 
Pope  and  Addison — the  period  during  which  it  may  be 
said  the  intellect  of  the  modern  English,  nation  was 
beins:  formed  and  cultivated,  and  its  civilization  moulded 
and  refined — Ireland  was  having  the  eves  of  the  mind 
imfc  out,  and  intellectual  blindness  and  habits  and  tastes 
of  barbarism  forced  upon  her  by  law. 

That  dreadful  policy  has  been  abandoned,  and  at 
length  the  Irish  race  are  being  allowed  access  to  the 
blessings  of  education.  Between  1S31  and  1840  a  system 
of  23rimary  schools  was  established  by  the  government, 
which,  althougli  ill  recommended  in  many  respects  to 
popular  confidence  and  favor,  has  been  almost  univer- 
sally availed  of :  it  may  now  be  said  that  in  every  cot- 
tage in  Ireland  the  school  and  the  jjrinting-press  have 
wrought  or  are  working  a  marvellous  revolution. 

Despite  all  disadvantages,  Ireland  makes  a  goodly 
show  on  the  roll  of  scholars,  poets,  authors,  savants, 
soldiers  and  statesmen  of  the  world.  Swift,  Goldsmith, 
Sheridan,  Moore,  Banim,  Griffin,  Charleton  and  Lever, 
in  literature ;  Burke,  Grattan,  Curran,  Plunkett, 
nichard  Lalor  Shiel,  O'Connell,  Dulfy,  Magee  (bishop 
of  Peterborough),  Butt  and  Lord  Dulferin,  in  oratory, 
statesmanship  and  jjolitics — are  familiar  names.  In 
the  last  generation  Wellington,  and  in  the  present  the 
only  two  capable  generals  England  has  in  command, 
Sir  Garnet  Wolseley  and  General  Roberts,  have  been 
contributed  by  Ireland.  Hogan,  Foley,  McDowell  and 
Farrell,  as  sculptors  ;  Maclise  and  O'Connor,  as 
painters  ;  Balfe  and  Wallace,  as  musical  composers  ; 
Prof.  Tyndall  and  Dr.  Haughton,  as  scientists — all 
Irishmen,  are  honorably  known.  The  two  most  com- 
petent historians  of  our  own  times  in  the  English  lan- 
guage, Mr.  Lecky  and  Mr.  Justin  McCarthy,  are  Irish- 
men. ^  In  the  camps  and  courts  and  cabinets  of  friendly 


lUELAI^D,  PAST  AiS'D  PErSE^'T. 


foreign  states,  from  Vienna  to  Madrid,  and  from  Paris 
to  St.  Petersburg,  men  of  Irish  race  iiave  long  been 
marked  to  eminence  and  fame. 

Finally,  it  may  be  said  tliat  the  labor,  industry  and 
enterprise  of  Irishmen  have  largely  contributed  to  the 
prosperity  and  power  of  those  comparatively  new  states 
in  the  western  and  southern  hemispheres  that  promise 
to  exercise  potential  influence  on  the  future  of  the 
world. 


T^alks  About  Ireland. 


By  James  Redpath. 


■3 


"DEDICATION. 
—  ♦  — 

TO 

THE    ILLUSTRIOUS    IRISH    STATESMAN    WHO     FOUNDED  THE 
IRISH   NATIONAL   LAND  LEAGUE; 

TO 

THE    CLEAR-EYED    IRISH    PATRIOT   WHO    FIRST   SHOWED  HOW 
IRELAND  MAY  BE  SOCIALLY  EMANCIPATED; 

TO 

THE  PURE-HEARTED  IRISH  HERO  WHOM  THE  HEATHEN  POWER 

THAT  ARRAYS  VICTORIA 
IN  PURPLE  ATTIRES  IN  A  CONVICT's  GARB; 

TO 

MICHAEL  DAVITT, 

NOW  IN  A  BRITISH  DUNGEON,  WITH  AFFECTIONATE  ADMIRATION, 

I  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK. 


James  Redpath. 


New- York,  May  io,  i88i. 


Copyright,  1881,  by  James  Redfath. 
All  rights  reser\ed. 


CONTENTS. 

I.  Famine  and  the  Landlords.   9 

II.  Famine  and  the  Priests.   31 

III.  A  Welcome  to  an  Irish  Statesman   34 

IV.  A  Souper-Jew's  Irish  Policy   37 

V.  Confiscation  and  Excommunication   39 

VI.  "A  Most  Treasonable  Speech."  .44 

VII.  Harvesting  for  the  Land  League   50 

VIII.  "  Between  Two  Lords  Slain."   52 

IX.  St.  Bridget  and  Bridget  ,       ,  61 

X.  "  Parnell  and  his  Associates."   65 

XI.  William  Bence  Jones,  Martyr.  76 

XII.  Irish  Crimes  and  Outrages   .71 

XIII.  "An  Exile  of  Erin."   75 

XIV.  Landlords  and  Land  Leaguers   9° 

XV.  The  True  Remedy.       .      .       .      .      ^      .      .      .    •  94 


9 


TALKS    ABOUT  IRELAND. 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


Mr.  Chairman^  Ladies,  and  Gentlemen  : 

ONE  day,  about  three  months  ago, 
I  was  riding  in  an  Irish  jaunting- 
car  in  the  parish  of  Islaneady,  in  the 
County  Mayo.  My  companion  was  the 
Rev.  Thomas  O'Malley.  He  had  been 
the  parish  priest  of  Islaneady  for  more 
than  twenty  years.  It  was  one  of  my 
first  rides  in  the  country  and  everything 
was  new  to  me.  As  we  drove  out,  we 
met  large  numbers  of  the  country 
women — comely  maidens,  sturdy  ma- 
trons, wrinkled  grandmothers — trudging 
along  with  bare  feet  in  the  cold  mud 
on  their  way  to  the  market,  at  West- 
port.  Nine  women  out  of  every  ten  go 
barefooted  in  the  rural  districts  of  the 
West  of  Ireland.  Here  and  there,  on 
both  sides  of  the  road,  I  saw,  as  you 
see  everywhere  in  the  County  Mayo, 
the  ruins  of  little  cabins  that  had  once 
been  the  homes  of  a  hardy  and  hard- 
working and  hospitable  peasantry. 

I  turned  to  Father  O'Malley  and 
asked  him  : 

"  Have  there  been  many  evictions  in 
your  parish  ?  " 

"Yes  !  "  said  the  old  man;  "  when  I 
was  a  young  priest,  there  were  i,8oo 

families  in  this  parish,  but  "  his 

face  grew  sad  and  his  voice  quivered 
with  emotion  as  he  added,  "  there  are 
only  six  hundred  families  now." 

"  Well,"  I  said,  "  what  has  become 
of  the  missing  twelve  hundred  fami- 
lies?'* 


"They  were  driven  out,"  he  answered, 
"by  famine  and  the  landlords." 

"  Famine  and  the  landlords  !" 

Now,  if  this  answer  had  been  made 
by  one  of  the  Irish  Land  Reformers — 
by  Mr.  Parnell  [applause]  for  example, 
or  Michael  Davitt  [renewed  applause], 
I  should  have  regarded  the  phrase  as 
an  excellent  "bit"  of  rhetorical  art — 
as  a  skillful  coupling  of  two  evils  not 
necessarily  mates — and  I  should  have 
smiled  at  the  forced  marriage,  and  then 
thought  no  more  about  it. 

But  the  words  impressed  me  pro- 
foundly when  they  came  from  the  lips 
of  an  old  priest,  a  cadet  of  an  ancient 
Irish  family,  a  man  of  the  most  con- 
servative temperament,  whose  training 
and  whose  office  might  have  been  ex- 
pected to  intensify  his  natural  bias  in 
favor  of  existing  institutions  and  estab- 
lished authority.  For  the  Catholic 
Church,  as  you  know,  is  the  most  po- 
tent conservative  force  in  our  modern 
society.  It  teaches  its  adherents  to 
render  unto  Ccesar  the  things  that  are 
Caesar's,  and  it  rarely  arrays  itself 
against  the  civil  authority. 

Yet  I  found  that  in  Ireland  wherever 
there  was  famine,  there  the  Catholic 
priests  did  not  hesitate  to  declare,  both 
in  private  and  in  print,  that  the  pri- 
mary causes  of  Irish  destitution  were 
the  exactions  of  the  landlords. 

So  I  shall  take  for  the  text  of  my 
talk  to  you  to-night  the  words  of  the 


10 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS, 


old  priest — "  Famine  and  the  Land- 
lords " — the  twin  curses  of  Ireland. 

Everybody  knows  that  there  is  a 
famine  in  Ireland.  But  the  extent  of 
it,  and  its  severity,  have  been  so  per- 
sistendy  understated,  and  the  statistics 
that  I  shall  give  you  so  greatly  exceed 
the  estimates  that  have  been  published, 
that  before  I  begin  to  tell  you  what  I 
know  about  the  famine — and  espe- 
cially what  I  know  about  it  not  from 
personal  observation  but  from  evi- 
dence— I  feel  that  I  owe  it  as  a  duty 
to  the  sufterers  from  the  famine,  for 
whom  I  shall  plead  to-night,  to  present 
the  credentials,  so  to  speak,  that  entitle 
me  to  represent  the  distressful  districts 
of  Ireland. 

During  my.  recent  visit  to  Ireland  I 
gave  both  my  days  and  nights  to  the 
study  of  the  famine.  I  interviewed  the 
reoresentaiive  manac^ers  of  the  Duchess 

L  O 

of  Marlboro's  fund,  the  Mansion  House 
fund,  the  Philadelphia  fund,  the  Herald 
fund,  and  the  National  Irish  Land 
League  fund.  I  interviewed  Catholic 
priests  and  Protestant  clergymen,  Brit- 
ish officials  and  American  Consuls,  Irish 
journalists  and  Irish  drummers,  Irish 
lords  and  Irish  peasants — everybody  I 
met,  everywhere,  who  knew  anything 
about  the  famine  from  personal  obser- 
vation. I  never  had  to  tell  where  I  came 
from,  because  I  asked  so  many  ques- 
tions that  nobody  ever  doubted  for  a 
single  moment  that  I  was  what  Father 
O'Farrell  called  me  the  other  dav — "  A 
pure,  unadulterated  Yankee."  [Laugh- 
ter] 

I  read  all  the  published  reports  and 
records  and  correspondence  of  the  three 
great  relief  committees  of  Dublin.  I 
read  every  letter  that  appeared  in  the 
leadmg  Irish  and  London  journals 
about  the  famine  for  more  than  six 
weeks.  I  read  every  letter  that  the 
Land  League  received  for  a  week — 
more  than  five  hundred  letters  from 
more  than  five  hundred  diffc;rent  dis- 
tricts of  Ireland.  I  received  over 
eighty  long  letters  from  prominent 
Catholic  priests,  each  one  of  them 
describing  the  present  condition  of  his 


1  own  parish.  I  received  also,  from  nine 
1  of  the  Catholic  bishops  in  the  distressed 
I  districts,  letters  in  which  their  lordships 
I  described  more  briefly  than  their  priests, 
I  but  more  comprehensively,  the  existing 
destitution  in  their  dioceses. 

I  succeeded  in  obtaining  abstracts 
from  the  latest  reports  of  the  local 
committees  of  the  Mansion  House. 
Tliere  are  six  hundred  and  ninety  local 
committees.  Each  committee  repre- 
sents a  different  district  of  destitution. 
Now  listen  to  the  composition  of  these 
local  committees.  There  are  on  them 
one  thousand  three  hundred  and  thirty- 
one  CathoHc  curates  and  priests;  five 
hundred  and  sixty-eight  Protestant 
clergymen ;  seven  hundred  and  twenty- 
two  justices  of  the  peace  ;  five  hundred 
and  thirty-one  medical  officers;  eight 
hundred  and  twenty-four  poor-law- 
guardians,  and  more  than  six  thousand 
other  lay  members;  in  all,  over  ten 
thousand  of  the  most  respectable  per- 
sons, both  as  to  personal  character  and 
social  standing,  and  all  of  them  living 
in  the  distressful  districts. 

Now,  whenever  I  do  not  quote  from 
the  letters  of  my  own  correspondents, 
or  whenever  I  do  not  state  the  results 
of  my  own  observation,  I  shall  re- 
port the  words  and  statistics  of  the 
Mansion  House  committees,  because 
ever)'  one  will  see  that  the  controlling 
members  of  these  committees — all  of 
their  laymen  loyal  subjects  of  the 
queen,  and  friends  or  lackeys  of  the 
;  landlords — have  the  strongest  political 
reasons  for  underestimating  the  num- 
bers of  persons  in  distress  in  their  re- 
spective districts,  and  not  a  single 
motive,  except  the  motive  of  humanity, 
for  stating  the  exact  number  of  the  suf- 
ferers in  their  neighborhood. 

In  order  to  impeach  or  to  discredit 
the  statistics  derived  from  the  reports 
of  the  Mansion  House  committees,  it 
will  be  essential,  as  you  see,  to  show 
first  that  it  is  possible,  and  then  that  it 
is  credible,  that  more  than  io,ooo  gen- 
tlemen of  Ireland,  of  both  creeds  and 
of  every  calling,  should  have  conspired 
to  deceive  the  world  about  the  Irish 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


distress.  I  shall  not  call  witnesses  from 
the  committees  of  the  Land  League, 
because  they  might  be  suspected  of  ex- 
aggerating the  distress  in  order  to 
demonstrate  the  evils  of  a  government 
by  landlords.  I  shall  show  the  imper- 
ative need  of  the  Irish  Land  League 
by  the  evidence  of  its  enemies  and  the 
friends  of  the  landlords. 

From  six  hundred  and  ninety  districts 
six  hundred  and  ninety  reports  made 
to  the  Mansion  House  demonstrate  the 
appalling  fact  that  there  are: 

In  the  Province  of  Leinster. . .  28,000 

In  the  Province  of  Ulstet  180,000 

In  the  Province  of  Munster  233,000 

In  the  Province  of  Connaught.422,000 


In  all  Ireland  863,000 

persons  at  this  very  hour  whose  strong- 
est hope  of  seeing  the  next  harvest 
moon  rise  as  they  stand  at  their  own  cab- 
in doors,  rests,  and  almost  solely  rests, 
on  the  bounty  of  the  stranger  and  of  tl>e 
exiles  of  Erin.  I  have  not  a  shadow  of 
a  shade  of  doubt  that  there  are  to-day 
in  Ireland  one  million  of  people  hun- 
gry and  in  rags — and  by  and  by  I  may 
show  you  why — but  I  can  point  out 
province  by  province,  county  by  county, 
and  parish  by  parish,  where  eight  hun- 
dred and  sixty-three  thousand  of  them 
are  praying,  and  begging,  and  clamor- 
ing for  a  chance  to  live  in  the  land  of 
their  birth.  Eight  hundred  and  sixty- 
three  thousand!  Do  you  grasp  this 
number?  If  you  were  to  sit  twelve 
hours  a  day  to  see  this  gaunt  army  of 
hunger  pass  in  review  before  you,  in 
single  file,  and  one  person  was  to  pass 
every  minute,  do  you  know  how  long  it 
would  be  before  you  saw  the  last  man 
pass  ?  Three  years  and  four  months ! 
[Sensation.] 

Remember  and  note  well  that  these 
statistics  are  not  cstiniaics.  They  are 
the  returns^  carefully  verified,  of  the 
actual  numbers  on  the  relief  rolls,  oroi 
the  numbers  reported  by  the  local  com- 
mittees as  in  real  distress. 

You  all  know  that  statements  and 


tabulated  statistics  have  little  influence 
on  public  opinion.  So,  to  show  to  you 
how  great  the  famine  is,  and  to  help 
you  to  gauge  it,  I  shall  ask  you  to  go 
with  me  rapidly  from  province  to  prov- 
ince, and  from  county  to  county,  to 
locate  and  distribute  the  destitution.  I 
shall  not  try  to  entertain  you.  I  should 
despise  any  audience  that  expected  to 
be  entertained  in  listening  to  the  story 
of  a  famine.  I  shall  be  satisfied  if  I 
succeed  in  stimulating  you  to  continue 
to  act  the  part  of  the  Good  Samaritan 
to  this  poor  people,  that  lie  wounded 
and  bleeding — having  fallen  among 
thieves;  while  the  part  of  the  priest 
and  the  Levite  in  the  parable  is  played 
by  the  British  Government  and  the 
Irish  landlords — from  the  miserly 
Queen  on  the  throne  down  to  the  crafty 
Earl  of  Dunraven — [hisses] — who  not 
only  have  passed  by  on  the  other  side, 
but  who  have  justified  and  eulogized, 
and  who  uphold  the  thieves.  [Hisses.] 

Mr.  Redpath  here  stepped  forward 
and  asked : 

"  Whom  are  you  hissing  ?  Are  you 
hissing  me  ?" 

Voices.—"  No  ! "  "  No  ! "  "  The 
Queen!"  "Not  you!"  "The  Queen!" 
"  The  Queen  ! " 

Mr.  Redpath. — Oh!  Thank  you! 
You  do  well  to  Jiiss  her.  She  deserves 
to  be  hissed  in  America.  Do  you  know 
that  Queen  Victoria  even  after  she 
knew  from  the  Duchess  of  Marlboro, 
that  there  was  universal  and  terrible 
distress  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  con- 
tributed only  one  day's  wages  to  relieve 
it  ?  Why,  a  poor  working  girl  of  Bos- 
ton, a  seamstress,  after  she  listened  to 
my  lecture  here  last  Sunday,  gave  fifty 
dollars  for  the  relief  of  the  distress  I  had 
so  inadequately  described.  She  would 
not  tell  her  name.  She  said :  "  God 
knowsmv name — that's enoudi."  That 
fifty  dollars  represented  her  savings  for 
six  months.  Yet  she  gave  it  freely  and 
without  hope  of  the  reward  even  of 
thanks  or  reputation  in  this  world !  In 
the  Roll  of  the  Hereafter,  when  the  list 
of  the  "  Royal  Personages "  of  this 
earth  is  called,  surely  the  name  of 


12 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


that  poor  seamstress  will  stand  high 
above  the  name  of  the  queen  of  Eng- 
land. [Applause.] 

But  I  ought  to  say  that  I  was  not 
satisfied  with  the  vast  volume  of  docu- 
mentary and  vicarious  evidence  that  I 
had  accumulated,  I  personally  visited 
several  of  the  districts  blighted  by  the 
famine,  and  saw  with  my  own  eyes 
the  destitution  of  the  peasantry,  and 
with  my  own  ears  heard  the  sighs  of 
their  unhappy  wives  and  children. 
They  were  the  saddest  days  1  ever 
passed  on  earth,  for  never  before  had  I 
seen  human  misery  so  hopeless  and 
undeserved  and  so  profound.  I  went 
to  Ireland  because  a  crowd  of  calami- 
ties had  overtaken  me  that  made  my 
own  life  a  burden  too  heavy  to  be 
borne.  But  in  the  ghastly  cabins  of 
the  Irish  peasantry,  without  fuel, 
without  blankets,  and  without  food — 
among  half-naked  and  blue-lipped 
children,  shivering  from  cold,  and  cry- 
ing from  hunger — among  women  who 
Mere  weeping  because  their  little  ones 
were  starving — among  men  of  a  race 
to  whom  a  fight  is  better  than  a  feast, 
but  whose  faces  now  bore  the  fam.ine's 
fearful  stamp  of  terror — in  the  West  of 
Ireland,  I  soon  forgot  every  trouble 
of  my  own  life  in  the  dread  presence 
of  the  great  tidal  wave  of  sorrow  that 
had  overwhelmed  an  unhappy  and  un- 
fortunate and  innocent  people. 

I  must  call  w'itnesses  less  sensitive 
than  I  am  to  Irish  sorrow  to  describe 
it  to  you — no,  not  to  describe  it,  but 
to  give  you  a  faint  and  far-away  out- 
line of  it.  Or,  rather,  I  shall  call  wit- 
nesses who  feel,  as  keenly  as  I  feel,  the 
misery  they  depict,  but  who  write  of  it, 
as  they  wept  over  it,  alone  and  unseen. 

But  before  I  summon  them,  let  us 
make  a  rapid  review  of  the  immediate 
or  physical  causes  of  the  famine. 

You  will  see  when  I  come  to  distrib- 
ute the  destitution  by  counties  that 
the  further  we  go  west  the  denser  be- 
som es  the  misery. 

The  famine  line  follows  neither  the 
division  lines  of  creeds  nor  the  bound- 
ary lines  of  provinces.    It  runs  from 


north  to  south — from  a  little  east  of 
the  city  of  Cork  in  the  south,  to  Lon- 
donderry in  the  north — and  it  divides 
Ireland  into  two  nearly  equal  parts. 
The  nearer  the  Western  coast  the  hun- 
grier the  people. 

The  western  half  of  Ireland — from 
Donegal  to  Cork — is  mountainous  and 
beautiful.  But  its  climate  is  inclem- 
ent. It  is  scourged  by  the  Atlantic 
storms.  It  is  wet  in  summer  and  bleak 
in  winter.  The  larger  part  of  the  soil 
is  either  barren  and  spewy  bogs  or 
stony  and  sterile  hills. 

The  best  lands,  in  nearly  every 
county,  have  been  leased  to  Scotch 
and  English  graziers.  For,  after  the 
terrible  famine  of  '47,  v.'hen  the  Irish 
people  staggered  and  fainted  with 
hunger  and  fever  into  their  graves — by 
tens  of  thousands,  and  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  ;  when  the  poor  tenants,  too 
far  gone  to  have  the  strength  to  shout 
for  food,  faintly  whispered  for  the  dear 
Lord's  sake  for  a  little  bread, — the 
landlords  of  the  West  answered  these 
piteous  moans  by  sending  processes  of 
ejectment  to  turn  them  out  into  the 
road-side  or  the  poor-house  to  die,  and 
by  hiring  crow-bar  brigades  to  pull 
down  the  roof  that  still  sheltered  the 
gasping  people.  [Hisses.]  As  fast  as 
the  homeless  peasants  died  or  were 
driven  into  exile,  their  little  farms  were 
rented  out  to  British  graziers.  [Hisses.] 
The  people  who  could  not  escape  were 
forced  to  take  the  wettest  bogs  and 
driest  hill-slopes.  These  swamps  and 
slopes  were  absolutely  worthless. 
Tliey  could  not  raise  enough  to  feed 
a  snipe.  By  the  patient  toil  of  the 
people  they  were  redeemed.  Sea- 
weed was  brought  on  the  backs  of  the 
farmers  for  miles  to  reclaim  these 
lands. 

The  landlord  did  not  spend  one 
shilling  to  help  the  tenant.  He  did 
not  build  the  cabin.  He  did  not  fence 
the  holding.  He  did  not  drain  the 
bog.  In  the  West  of  Ireland  the  land- 
lord does  nothing  but  take  rent.  I 
beg  the  landlord's  pardon ;  I  want  to 
be  perfectly  just.    The  landlord  does 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


two  things  beside  taking  the  rent.  He 
makes  the  tenant  pay  the  larger  part 
of  the  taxes,  and  as  fast  as  the  farmer 
improves  the  land  the  landlord  raises 
the  rent.  And  whenever,  from  any 
cause,  the  tenant  fails  to  pay  the  rent, 
the  landlord  turns  him  out  and  con- 
fiscates his  improvements.  [Hisses.] 

The  writers  who  combat  commun- 
ism say  that  communism  means  taking 
the  property  of  other  people  without 
paying  for  it.  From  this  point  of  view 
Ireland  is  a  shocking  example  of  the 
evils  of  communism,  for  the  Irish  land- 
lords of  the  West  are  communists  and 
the  lineal  descendants  of  a  line  of 
communists.  JCheers.] 

The  landlords  charge  so  high  a  rent 
for  these  lands  that  even  in  the  best  of 
seasons  the  tenants  can  save  nothing. 
To  hide  their  own  exactions  from  the 
execration  of  the  human  race,  the  land- 
lords and  their  parasites  have  added 
insult  to  injury  by  charging  the  woes 
of  Ireland  to  the  improvidence  of  the 
people.  Stretched  on  the  rack  of  the 
landlord's  avarice,  one  bad  season 
brings  serious  distress  to  the  tenant ;  a 
second  bad  season  takes  away  the  help- 
ing hand  of  credit  at  the  merchant's ; 
and  the  third  bad  season  beckons  fam- 
ine and  fever  to  the  cabin  door. 

Now  the  summer  of  1879  was  the 
third  successive  bad  season.  When  it 
opened,  it  found  the  people  deeply  in 
debt.  Credit  was  stopped.  But  for  the 
confidence  of  the  shop-keepers  in  the 
honesty  of  the  peasant,  the  distress 
would  have  come  a  year  ago.  It  was 
stayed  by  the  kind  heart  of  the  humble 
merchant.  Therefore,  the  landlords 
have  charged  the  distress  to  the  system 
of  credit! 

There  was  a  heavy  fall  of  rain  all 
last  summer.  The  turf  was  ruined. 
Two-thirds  of  the  potato  crop  was  lost, 
on  an  average,  of  the  crop  of  all 
Ireland ;  but,  in  many  large  districts 
of  the  West,  not  a  single  sound 
potato  was  dug.  One-half  of  the  tur- 
nip crop  perished.  The  cereal  crop 
suffered,  although  not  to  so  great  an 
extent.  There  was  a  rot  in  sheep  in 


some  places,  and  in  other  places  an 
epidemic  among  the  pigs.  The  fisher- 
ies failed.  The  iron  mines  in  the 
South  were  closed.  Everything  in 
Ireland  seemed  to  have  conspired  to 
invite  a  famine. 

But  the  British  and  American  farm- 
ers were  also  the  innocent  causes  of 
intensifying  Irish  distress. 

In  Donegal,  Mayo,  Galway,  and  the 
Western  Islands,  the  small  holders  for 
generations  have  never  been  able  to 
raise  enough  from  their  little  farms  to 
pay  their  big  rents.  They  go  over 
every  spring,  by  tens  of  thousands,  to 
England  and  Scotland,  and  hire  out  to 
the  farmers  for  wages.  They  stay  there 
till  the  crops  are  harvested.  But  the 
great  American  competition  is  lowering 
the  prices  of  farm  produce  in  Great 
Britain  and  the  prices  of  farm  stock ; 
and,  therefore,  the  English  and  Scotch 
farmers,  for  two  or  three  years  past, 
have  not  been  able  to  pay  the  old 
wages  to  these  Irish  laborers.  Last 
summer,  instead  of  sending  back  wages 
to  pay  the  rent,  hosts  of  Irish  farm- 
hands had  to  send  for  money  to  get 
back  again. 

These  complex  combinations  of  mis- 
fortune resulted  in  universal  distress. 
Everywhere,  in  the  strictly  agricultural 
regions  of  the  West,  the  farmers,  and 
especially  the  small  holders,  suffered 
first,  and  then  the  distress  spread  out 
its  ghoul-like  wings  until  they  over- 
shadowed the  shop-keepers,  the  artisans, 
the  fishermen,  the  miners,  and  more 
than  all,  the  laborers  who  had  no  land 
but  who  had  worked  for  the  more  com- 
fortable class  of  farmers. 

These  malignant  influences  blighted 
every  county  in  the  West  of  Ireland, 
and  these  mournful  facts  are  true  of 
almost  every  parish  in  all  that  region. 

Looking  at  the  physical  causes  of 
the  distress, every  honest  and  intelligent 
spectator  will  say  that  they  are  cowards 
and  libelers  who  assert  that  the  vic- 
tims of  che  famine  are  in  any  way  re- 
sponsible for  it.  [Cheers.] 

Looking  at  the  exactions  of  the 
landlords,  none  but  a  blasphemer  will 


14 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


pretend  that  the  distress  is  an  act  of 
Providence.  [Applause.] 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  point  out  the 
locality  and  density  of  distress  in  the 
different  districts  of  the  counties  of  Ire- 
land. I  could  talk  for  two  hours  on 
each  province,  and  never  repeat  a  sin- 
gle figure  or  fact.  I  must  content 
myself  by  summoning  to  my  aid  the 
stem  and  passionless  eloquence  of  sta- 
tistics, and,  by  showing  you  the  num- 
bers of  the  distressed  in  each  county, 
enable  you  to  judge,  each  of  you  for 
yourself,  how  wide-spread  is  the  misery 
and  how  deep. 

THE  PROVINCE  OF  LEIXSTER. 

Let  us  run  rapidly  over  Ireland.  We 
will  begin  with  the  least  distressful 
province — the  beautiful  province  of 
Leinster.  Leinster  is  the  garden  of 
Ireland.  There  is  no  finer  country  in 
the  temperate  zone.  There  is  no 
natural  reason  why  poverty  should 
ever  throw  its  blighting  shadows 
athwart  the  green  and  fertile  fields 
of  Leinster. 

There  are  resident  landlords  in  the 
rural  districts  of  Leinster ;  and  wher- 
ever in  Ireland  the  owners  of  the  soil 
live  on  their  own  estates,  the  peasantry, 
as  a  rule,  are  more  justly  dealt  with 
than  when  they  are  left  to  the  tiger- 
mercy  of  the  agent  of  the  absentee. 
But  it  is  not  the  fertile  soil  only,  nor  the 
presence  of  resident  proprietors  only, 
nor  the  proximity  of  markets  only — 
nOT  is  it  these  three  causes  jointly — 
that  account  for  the  absence  of  such  a 
long  procession  of  distress  as  the  other 
provinces  present. 

In  some  of  the  fairest  counties  of 
Leinster,  eviction  has  done  its  perfect 
work.  Instead  of  toiling  peasants  you 
find  fat  bullocks ;  instead  of  bright- 
eyed  girls  you  find  bleating  sheep. 
After  the  famine  of  1847,  the  men 
were  turned  out  and  the  beasts  were 
turned  in.  The  British  Government 
cheered  this  infamy,  for  Irishmen  are 
rebels — sometimes:  but  heifers  are 
loyal — always.  There  is  less  distress  in 


the  rural  districts  of  Leinster  because 
there  are  fewer  people  there. 

In  the  12  counties  of  Leinster,  there 
are  38,000  persons  in  distress — in  Dub- 
lin, 250;  in  Wexford,  870;  in  King's 
County,  1,047  \  Meath  and  in  West- 
meath,  1,550  each;  in  Kildare,  1.567  ; 
in  Kilkenny,  1,979;  in  Carlow,  2,000; 
in  Louth,  3,050 ;  in  Queen's  County^ 
4,743;  in  Wicklow,  5,450;  in  Long- 
ford, 9,557. 

1      In  Carlow,  in  Westmeath,  in  Louth,. 

,  and  in  one  district  of  the  Queen's 
County,  the  distress  is  expected  to  in- 
crease. In  Kildare  and  in  King's 
County,  it  is. not  expected  to  increase. 

You  see  by  this  list  how  moderate 
the  returns  are — how  strictly  they  are 
confined  to  famine  or  exceptional  dis- 
tress, as  distinguished  from  chronic  or 
ordinary  poverty  ;  because  there  are 
thousands  of  ver}'  poor  persons  in  the 
city  of  Dublin,  and  yet  there  are  only 
two  hundred  and  fifty  reported  as  in 
distress  in  the  entire  county.  They 
belong  to  the  rural  district  of  Glen- 
cullen. 

Longford  leads  the  list  of  distressed 
j  counties  in  Leinster.  There  are  no 
resident  proprietors  in  Longford.  Up 
to  the  I  St  of  March  not  one  of  them 
had  given  a  single  shilling  for  the  relief 
of  the  destitute  on  their  estates. 
[Hisses.]  The  same  report  comes  from 
Kilkenny.  [Hisses.] 

The  distress  in  Leinster  is  among  the 
fishermen  and  small  farmers  and  labor 
ers.  In  Wicklow  the  fishers  are  kept 
poor  because  the  Goveri>ment  refuses- 
to  build  harbors  for  their  protection. 
In  Westmeath  "  the  laboring  class  and 
the  small  farmers  are  in  great  distress." 
That  is  the  report  of  the  local  com- 
mittee, and  I  can  confirm  it  by  my 
personal  observation. 

The  province  of  Leinster  contains 
one-fourth  of  the  population  of  Ireland, 
but  it  does  not  contain  more  than  one- 
thirtieth  part  of  the  prevailing  distress. 
So  I  shall  take  you  to  one  parish  only 
— to  Stradbally  in  the  Queen's  County. 
It  is  not  included  in  the  reports  of  the 
Mansion  House  Committee. 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  REDPATH, 


15 


Dr.  John  Magee,  P.  P.,  of  Strad- 
bally,  wrote  to  me  quite  recently  : 

"  In  this  parish,  one  of  the  most 
favorably  circumstanced  in  Leinster, 
such  has  been  their  misery  that  for  the 
last  three  months  I  have  been  doling 
out  charities  to  one  hundred  and  twenty 
families.  Some  of  them  I  found  in  a 
state  of  utter  starvation, — an  entire 
day,  sometimes,  without  a  morsel  of 
food  in  the  cabin. 

"  But  most  miserable  of  all,  and 
what  makes  the  case  so  affecting,  very 
many  of  our  small  farmers  (whose 
pride  would  hide  their  poverty)  are 
now  reduced  to  the  same  plight, — the 
rack-rent  (or  excessive  rent)  having 
robbed  them  of  every  available  sala- 
ble chattel  they  possessed. 

"  I  had  missed  for  some  time  one  of 
our  farmers,  holding  about  thirty-five 
acres.  On  inquiry,  I  found  that  he 
was  confined  to  his  house  for  want  of 
clothing,  and  that  he  had  eaten  his 
last  potatoes  and  the  only  fowl  left  on 
the  place.  To  add  to  his  misery,  the 
rack-warner  had  waited  on  him  the 
day  before  to  come  in  with  his  rent. 

"  In  the  past  week,  I  gave  stealthily 
to  one  of  our  farmers — holding  over 
sixty  acres  of  land,  and  who  used  to 
have  a  stock  of  eighteen  or  twenty 
milch-cows~a  bag  of  Indian  meal,  to 
save  his  family  from  starvation.  The 
man,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  told  me 
that  '  his  children  had  not  eaten  a 
morsel  for  the  last  twenty-four  hours,' 
and  I  believed  him. 

"  Of  the  two  hundred  and  forty 
families  in  my  parish,  one-fifth  of  them 
are  in  the  same  miserable  condition, — 
without  food,  without  stock,  without 
seed  for  the  land,  without  credit,  and 
without  any  possible  hope  from  the 
justice  or  the  sympathy  of  the  English 
Government." 

Father  Magee  is  not  only  a  good 
Irish  priest  but  a  profound  student  of 
Irish  history.  Will  you  let  me  read  to 
you  what  he  wrote  to  me  about  the 
causes  of  Irish  famines  ? 

"  If  I  were  asked,"  he  wrote,  "  why 
is  it  that  Ireland  is  so  poor,  with  abun- 


dance of  foreign  grain  and  food  in  our 
ports,  whence  this  famine  that  alarms 
even  the  stranger,  my  answer  would 
be 

Now  listen : 

"  Speak  as  we  may  of  short  and  ^ 
scanty  harvests,  the  real  cause  is  land-  • 
lords'  exactions,  which  drain  the  land 
of  money,  and  which  leave  nothing  * 
to  buy  corn. 

"  Landlord  absolutism  and  unre- 
strained rack-rents  have  always  been, 
and  are  at  present,  the  bane  and  the 
curse  of  Ireland.  If  the  harvest  be 
good,  landlordism  luxuriates  and  ab- 
stracts all ;  if  scanty  or  bad,  landlord- 
ism seizes  on  the  rood  or  cattle  for  th^ 
rack-rent." 

This  is  the  learned  priest's  accusation. 
Now  let  us  listen  to  his  speculations: 

"  I  have  in  my  own  ])arish,"  he  says,- 
"  five  or  six  landlords — not  the  worst 
type  of  their  class — two  of  them  of 
Cromvvellian  descent,  a  third  an  Eliza- 
bethan, all  enjoying  the  confiscated 
estates  of  the  O'Moores,  O'Lalors,  and 
O'Kellys,  whose  sons  are  now  the 
miserable  tenants  of  these  estates- 
tenants  who  are  paying,  or  trying  to 
pay,  forty,  eighty,  and,  in  some  cases, 
one  hundred  and  twenty  per  cent, 
over  the  Government  valuation  of  the 
land.  Tenants  who  are  treated  as 
slaves  and  starved  as  beggars.  If 
these  tenants  dare  gainsay  the  will  of 
the  lord  "— 

Father  Magee  doesn't  mean  the  will 
of  Heaven,  but  the  caprice  of  the  land- 
lord. [Laughter,] 

"If  they  gainsay  the  will  of  the 
landlord,  or  even  complain,  they  are 
victimized  on  the  spot. 

"  This  land  system  pays  over,  from 
the  sweat  and  toil  of  our  inhabitants, 
ninety  million  dollars  yearly  to  six  or 
seven  thousand  landlords,  •  who  do 
nothing  but  hunt  a  fox  or  hunt  the 
tenantry."  [Cries  of  "Shame!"  and 
hisses.] 

These  good  landlords,  you  know, 
have  a  "  wicked  partner"  ;  and  I  want 
you  to  hear  what  Father  Magee  knows 
about  the  "  wicked  partner." 


i6 


FAMIXE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


"  The  [British]  Government,  that 
upholds  this  cruel  system,  abstracts 
thirty-five  millions  more  from  the  land 
in  imperial  taxation,  while  there  is  left 
for  the  food,  clothing,  and  subsistence 
of  five  millions  of  people  not  more 
than  fifty  million  dollars,  or  about  ten 
dollars  per  head  yearly."  [Sensation.] 

Isn't  that  just  damnable  ?  [Ap- 
plause.] 

"  This  is  the  system,"  says  Father 
Magee,  that  produces  our  periodical 
famines ;  which  shames  and  degrades 
us  before  Europe;  which  presents  us, 
periodically,  before  the  world  as  men- 
dicants and  beggars  before  the  na- 
tions. *  *  *  And  will  any  one 
blame  us,  cost  what  it  may,  if  we  are 
resolved  to  get  rid  of  a  system  that 
has  so  long  enslaved  our  people  ?  " 

Blame  you!  Blame  you!  Faith, 
no  matter  what  you  do  to  get  rid  of 
such  a  system,  devil  a  bit  will  I  blame 
you.  Father  Magee!  [Laughter  and 
applause.] 

It  was  in  this  province  that  I  gained 
my  first  personal  knowledge  of  the 
fierce  celerity  with  which  the  Irish 
landlords,  in  years  of  distress,  rally  to 
the  assistance — twt  of  their  tenants  but 
the  famine.  I  went  down  from  Dub- 
lin to  attend  an  indignation  meeting 
over  an  eviction  in  the  parish  of  Bally- 
brophy,  near  Knockaroo,  in  the  Queen's 
County. 

As  we  drove  fi:om  the  railway  station 
I  noticed  that  three  men  jumped  into 
a  jaunting-car  and  followed  us.  I 
asked  my  companion  if  he  knew  who 
they  were  "  Oh,  yes,"  he  said,  "  it  is 
a  magistrate  and  two  short-hand 
writers  paid  by  the  Government;  they 
follow  us  wherever  we  go  to  get  evi- 
dence of  seditious  language  to  try  and 
convict  us;  they  have  constabulary 
with  loaded  muskets  at  all  our  meet- 
ings ;  they  think  they  can  overawe  me 
but  they  only  exasperate  me."  It  was 
Michael  Davitt.  [Cheers.] 

Sure  enough,  when  we  got  to  the 
meeting,  there  was  a  platoon  of  armed 
constabulary  at  it.  Xo  one  pretended 
that  there  was  any  risk  of  a  riot  at 


j  Ballybrophy,  for  everybody  there  be- 
1  longed  to  the  same  party.  Next  week 
i  a  party  of  Orangemen  threatened — in 
!  advance — to  break  up  a  meeting  of 
I  the  Land  League  in  a  county  in  Ul- 
ster. Not  a  constable  was  sent  there, 
'  and  the  Orange  rioters  were  allowed 
!  to  disperse  the  audience  and  shed  the 
blood  of  peaceful  citizens.  [Hisses.] 

Why  was  this   meeting  called  at 
Ballybrophy?    Malachi  Kelly,  a  de- 
cent old  man,  with  a  wife  and  five 
children,  had  been  turned  out  of  his 
house  into  the  road  by  his  landlord — a 
person  of  the  name  of  Erasmus  Dick- 
son Barrows.    Mr.  Kelly  had  paid  his 
rent,  without  failing  once,  for  thirty 
consecutive  years.    All  his  life  long  he 
had  borne  the  reputation  of  an  honest 
I  and  temperate  and  industrious  man. 
I      His  rent  at  fij^t  was  five  hundred 
and   thirty-five   dollars  a  year.  He 
made  improvements  at  his  own  cost. 
The  rent  was  instantly  raised  to  six 
hundred  and  forty  dollars.    The^ land- 
lord solemnly  promised  not  to  raise 
the  rent  again,  and  to  make  some  im- 
provements that  were  needed.  Rely- 
ing on  this  pledge,  Mr.  Kelly  spent 
fifteen  hundred  dollars  in  erecting  per- 
manent buildings  in  1873.    The  land- 
lord instandy  raised  the  rent  again 
— this  time  to   seven   hundmd  and 
:  seventy-five  dollars.    In  otlier  words 
'  he  fined  Mr.  Kelly  one  hundred  and 
,  ten  dollars  a  year  for  the  folly  of  be- 
1  lieving  a  landlord's  pledge  and  for  the 
I  offense  of  increasing  the  value  of  his 
landlord's   estate.    Last  season  Mr. 
Kelly's  crop  was  a  total  failure,  and 
the  old  man  could  not  pay  the  rent 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life.    So  he  was 
turned  out  in  his  old  age,  homeless  and 
penniless;  and  the  buildings  that  he  had 
erected  at  his  own  cost  became  the 
I  propert}'  of  his  landlord.  ["  Shame ! "] 
I      Michael  Da\itt  made  a  speech  on 
'  this  eviction,  and  I  did  not  notice  that 
the  loaded  muskets  of  the  constabulary 
overawed  him.   [Applause.]   All  the 
time  he  was  talking  I  kept  wondering 
to  myself :  How  is  it  that  Mr.  Davitt 
1  knows  what  I  wanted  to  say?  He 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  RE  DEATH. 


17 


uttered  my  opinions,  for  he  denounced 
the  l:indlord.  [Applause.] 

THE   PROVINCE  OF  ULSTER. 

English  writers  and  their  American 
echoers  have  so  persistently  asserted 
that  Ulster  is  always  prosperous — and 
they  have  so  unanimously  attributed 
this  prosperity  to  the  superior  fertiUzing 
qualities  of  the  Presbyterian  faith  ; 
[laughter] — that  some  of  you  will  be  i 
surprised,  perhaps,  when  I  assert,  as 
ray  beHef^  that  there  are  probably  two 
hundred  thousand  persons  in  distress 
at  the  present  moment  in  this  "pros- 
perous "  province. 

Thrusting  aside  for  a  moment  the 
Presbyterian  political  pretenses,  it  is 
of  vital  importance,  on  entering  this  ' 
province,  to  emphasize  the  fact  that  | 
the  system  of  land-tenure  in  Ulster,  or  ; 
rather  in  the  Protestant  counties  of  , 
Ulster,  was  and  still  is  as  different  from  | 
the   system   of    land-tenure    in   the  ; 
Cathohc  jirovinces  as  the  American 
freedom  of  to-day  is  different  from  the 
Southern  slavery  of  the  past.    I  weigh 
my  words.    And  it  should  be  stated, 
with  an  equal  emphasis,  that  the  ten- 
ant-at-will   system   that    blights  the 
Catholic  counties  of  Ireland  to-day  is 
one  of  the  sad  legacies  of  that  long 
reign  of  terror  known  in  Irish  history 
as  the   era    of  "  Protestant  Ascen- 
dency." 

Ever  since  the  days  when  the  old 
Irish  were  driven  by  English  conquest 
— to  use  a  famous  phrase — into  "  Hell 
or  Connaught,"  the  tillers  of  the  soil 
in  the  Ulster  Plantation  have  been 
protected — by  an  unwritten  law  called 
the  "  Ulster  Custom  " — in  the  rights 
that  they  earned  by  their  labor  on 
their  farms. 

The  English  and  Scotch  emigrants 
brought  over  with  them  their  English 
and  Scotch  theories  and  usages.  It 
was  not  usual  for  the  landlords  to  give 
formal  leases,  but  the  Ulster  Custom 
gave  the  tenant  not  only  a  legal  right 
to  the  value  of  his  improvements,  not 
only  substantial  perpetuity  of  tenure. 


but  also  the  good-will  of  his  farm — that 
is  to  say,  a  prior  right  to  his  tenancy 
from  which  he  could  not  be  arbitrarily 
evicted  without  compensation.  This 
tenant-right  was  justly  regarded  as  a 
valuable  property.  It  was  marketable. 
The  good-will  of  a  farm  was  often  more 
valuable  than  the  tenant's  improve- 
ments on  it. 

In  the  Catholic  provinces  of  Con- 
naught  and  Munster  there  was  no  such 
custom  as  the  Ulster  custom.  There 
was  no  such  stability  of  tenure.  There 
was  no  such  right  to  the  good-will  of 
the  farm.  There  was  no  such  recosfni- 
tion  of  the  tenant's  rights  of  property 
in  improvements  that  had  been  made 
by  his  own  labor  and  capital.  The 
tenants  in  the  Catholic  provinces  have 
always  been  tenants-at-will — and  a 
tenant-at-will  is  merely  a  serf  of  the 
soil.  But  it  is  not  everywhere  in 
Ulster  that  tenants'  rights  are  re- 
spjected.  It  is  only  in  the  strictly 
Protestant  parts  of  Ulster,  and  even 
there  the  small  farmers  are  besfinnincr 
to  see  and  to  feel  that  they  have  no 
adequate  protection  against  the  pitiless 
exactions  of  the  landlords  as  exhibited 
in  an  excessive  increase  of  rent. 

Pharaoh  is  hardening  his  heart  up 
in  Ulster;  and  Aaron  and  Moses — or, 
in  modern  language,  Parnell  and  Dav- 
itt — will  soon  sound  the  timbrel  o'er 
Egypt's  dark  seas."  [Applause.] 

And  now  allow  me  to  expose  the 
hypocritical  pretext  that  it  is  owing 
to  Protestantism  that  Ulster  is  pros- 
perous. 

The  face  of  oppression  is  so  hideous 
even  to  its  own  eyes  that  it  always 
wears  the  mask  of  some  power  that  th'* 
human  race  respects.  Legree  posed 
as  Moses.  The  auction-block  of  the 
slave-trader  was  built  behind  the  altar 
of  the  Christian  church.  In  Ireland 
the  pitiless  persecutions  of  the  Catho- 
lics have  been  ])alliated  by  the  pretext 
that  they  were  needed  to  maintain 
Protestant  ascendency,  which  was 
identified  with  Christian  civilization. 

With  the  doctnne  of  the  right  of 
private  j  udgment  in  its  mouth,  political 


i8 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


Protestantism  in  Ireland  has  persecuted 
the  Catholics  for  conscience'  sake  for 
nearly  three  centuries. 

The  American  Protestant  youth  are 
taught,  that  the  Roman  Cathohc 
Church  has  been  the  only  religious 
persecutor  in  modem  times.  When  I 
Avas  a  little  boy  I  was  taught  that  the 
Church  of  Rome  and  the  Church  of 
England  were  the  only  religious  per- 
secutors— for  my  father  was  a  Scotch 
Presbyterian,  and  he  never  forgot  to 
inculcate  the  lesson  taught  by  the 
history  of  the  Lowland  Covenanters. 
Yankee  boys,  and  Scotch  boys,  and 
English  boys  are  never  told  the  sad 
and  blood-red  story  of  the  persecu- 
tions of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland. 

The  history  of  the  persecutions  of 
the  Irish  Catholics  bv  the  Protestant 
political  power  in  Ireland,  is  one  of 
the  saddest  chapters  in  the  annals 
of  modern  Europe.  It  is  a  history 
of  penal  laws  framed  in  Hell  and  exe- 
cuted by  fiends  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ.  [Applause.]  It  swept  the 
entire  gamut  of  crime.  Its  seven 
notes  were  proscriptions,  perjuries, 
confiscations,  priest-huntings,  hang- 
ings, massacres,  and  calumnies. 

Landlordism  and  Protestantism  piay 
the  part  in  Irish  history  that  the  two 
chained  giants  whom  John  Bunyan 
called  Popery  and  Paganism  play- in 
that  famous  Puritan  story — "  Pilgrim's 
Progress."  They  curse  and  howl  at 
the  victims  whom  they  can  no  longer 
torture.  For,  when  the  progress  of 
civilization  rendered  it  imperative  for 
England  to  extract  the  fangs  of  Prot- 
estant hate  in  Ireland,  it  began  that 
career  of  calumniation  that  has  not  yet 
closed. 

One  reason  why  the  Protestant  prov- 
ince of  Ulster  is  more  prosperous  in 
parts  than  the  Cathohc  provinces  of  Ire- 
land is,  because  Protestant  estates  were 
never  confiscated  there — for  Protest- 
ants were  the  receivers  of  the  stolen 
estates  of  Catholics ;  because  their 
clergymen  (unlike  the  Catholic 
priests)  were  never  hunted  and  hanged 
or  banished :  because  it  was  never  a 


capital  offense  to  teach  their  children 
to  read — as  it  was  a  death  penalty  to 
teach  the  Catholic  youth  ;  because  the 
Protestants  of  the  North  were  pro- 
tected by  the  English  Government, 
while  the  Catholics  of  the  South  were 
persecuted  by  it.  [Applause.] 

It  is  true  that  these  crimes  belong  to 
the  past,  but  it  is  also  true  that  the 
results  of  these  crimes  remain. 

It  was  Macaulay  who  gave  the 
widest  circulation  to  the  theory  that  it 
was  Protestantism  that  had  fertilized 
Ulster,  and  Catholicism  that  had 
blighted  Connaught.  Well,  although 
"what  I  know  about  farming"  does 
not  exhaust  the  science  of  agriculture, 
it  does  seem  to  me  that  one  ton  of 
guano  is  better  for  a  crop — especially 
a  crop  of  potatoes  in  Connaught — 
than  all  the  thirty-nine  articles  of  the 
Church  of  England,  with  the  five 
points  of  Calvinism  thrown  in. — 
[Laughter.] 

And,  ladies  and  gentlemen,  one  ray 
of  common  sense  by  any  common  man 
is  vastly  more  valuable  to  the  intellect 
than  the  most  dazzling  calcium-light 
brilliancy  even  of  a  Macaulay. 

If  it  was  the  Catholic  religion  that 
blighted  the  Catholic  provinces  of 
Ireland,  why  was  it  that  the  French 
Catholic  peasants  ive7'e  as  wretched 
before  they  owned  their  lands  as  the 
Irish  Catholic  peasants  are  to-day  ? 

It  is  not  a  question  of  spiritual 
theses,  but  of  temporal  leases;  it  is 
not  what  faith  we  hold  about  our  home 
in  the  next  world,  but  what  hold  we 
have  on  our  home  in  this  world. 
[Applause.] 

Macaulay  knew  these  facts.  Ma- 
caulay professed  to  believe  in  the 
mysteries  of  the  Christian  religion. 
Macaulay  was  familiar  with  the  history 
of  Protestant  rule  in  Ireland.  Do  yo" 
know  that  I  have  sometimes  wondered, 
when  Macaulay  sat  down  to  write  this 
indictment  of  Irish  Catholicism,  that  a 
terrible  vision  of  the  Day  of  Judgment 
on  a  background  of  hell-flan-ies,  did  not 
rise  up  before  him  and  paralyze  hif 
hand  ?  [Loud  and  prolonged  applause.. 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


I  am  not  a  Catholic,  and  I  do  not 
recall  these  crimes  to  condemn  Protest- 
antism, nor  to  seek  Catholic  applause. 
I  am  a  Protestant  of  Protestantism.  I 
conciliate  nobody,  and  I  ask  favors  of 
no  man;  but  I  hate  with  a  hatred  in- 
extinguishable every  form  of  oppres- 
sion, and  I  shall  strike  at  it  in  the  future 
as  I  have  done  in  the  past,  without 
waiting  to  inquire  its  name,  or  to  look 
at  its  flag.  Protestantism  in  Irish 
history  has  only  been  another  name  for 
the  spirit  of  caste.  [Applause.] 

In  the  province  of  Ulster,  on  the 
first  day  of  March  last,  the  local  com- 
mittees of  the  Mansion  House,  131  in 
number,  reported  that  there  were  in 
distress,  in  eight  counties,  160,880 
persons — in  Antrim,  220;  in  Down, 
800;  in  Armagh,  10,455;  Mon- 
aghan,  7,447;  in  Cavan,  34,709^ 
Fermanagh,  12,768;  in  Tyrone,  7,447; 
in  Donegal,  87,034.  Fourteen  of  the 
Ulster  committees  report  that  the  dis- 
tress is  likely  or  certain  to  increase. 
The  most  moderate  estimate,  therefore, 
of  the  army  of  hunger  in  the  province  of 
Ulster — including  the  county  of  Lon- 
donderry— would  put  the  figures  at 
180,000.    It  is  more  probably  200,000. 

Yet  this  vast  aggregation  of  human 
misery  exists  in  a  province  in  which 
the  Belfast  manufactories  employ  large 
numbers  of  boys  and  girls,  and  so  to  a 
considerable  extent  relieve  the  agri- 
cultural classes,  both  by  sending  back 
wages  to  the  cabins  in  the  country, 
and  by  affording  a  home  market  for 
their  produce.  And,  in  justice  to  the 
Catholic  provinces,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  the  reason  why  there  are  no 
manufactories  in  Connaught  and  Mun- 
ster,  is  because  the  English  Parliament 
for  several  generations,  by  positive 
legislation,  prevented  their  establish- 
ment, and  because,  since  these  infa- 
mous laws  were  repealed,  their  disas- 
trous results  have  been  conserved  by 
combinations  among  the  English  man- 
ufacturers. 

In  Antrim,  in  Down,  in  Armagh, 
in  Monaghan,  in  Cavan,  in  Tyrone, 
and  in  Donegal,  the  committees  report 


19 


that  the  distress  is  increasing,  or  certain 
to  increase. 

'J'he  Catholic  Bishop  of  Clogher 
wrote  to  me  about  the  distress  m  his 
great  diocese.  Nearly  all  of  his  dio- 
cese is  in  Ulster.  It  comprises  the 
County  of  Monaghan,  most  of  the 
County  Fermanagh,  a  large  tract  of 
Tyrone,  with  portions  of  Donegal  and 
Louth.  It  has  a  population  of  235,- 
000  souls.  The  diocese  is  divided 
into  forty  parishes.  He  writes  that  in 
ten  of  these  parishes  there  is  consider- 
able distress,  going  much  beyond  the 
state  of  things  in  ordinary  years,  but 
nothing  to  excite  grave  alarm.  But 
in  the  remaining  thirty  parishes  there 
exists  grievous  disti'ess,  varying  in 
amount  and  extending  over  100  to 
200  families  in  some  parishes,  300  to 
500  in  others.  Ten  per  cent,  of  these 
families  have  no  food  at  all — 7iot  a 
7noiithfuI — except"  what  they  receive 
from  charity,  and  all  the  rest  "are  suffer- 
ing more  or  less  severely  from  want  of 
food  and  clothing  and  seeds.  The 
laborers  evervwhere,  who  have  no 
farms,  were  suffering  more  than  in 
ordinary  times,  because  the  farmers 
can  no  longer  afford  to  pay  them.  His 
Lordship  added  that  it  is  hard  to  see 
why  our  destitution  in  food  and  cloth- 
ing must  not  continue,  and  even  go  on 
increasing,  until  the  arrival  of  the  next 
harvest. 

Now,  let  us  rapidly  glance  at  the 
different  counties  of  Ulster  as  they  are 
described  by  the  local  committees  of 
the  Mansion  House : 

In  the  County  Antrim,  the  Mansion 
House  committees  report  that  "the 
people  are  impoverished  to  an  extent 
unknown  since  '47,  and  the  clergy  and 
gentry  are  besieged  by  the  people  for 
aid." 

There  is  only  one  report  from  the 
County  Down — from  Kilcoo,  where 
there  are  eight  hundred  persons  in 
distress,  whose  numbers  it  is  stated, 
"  must  increase,"  and  where  "  the  dis- 
tress is  decidedly  grave." 

In  the  County  Armagh,  in  five  dis- 
tricts, the  first  local  estimate  of  the 


20 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


number  of  persons  in  distress  was  ten 
thousand.  Later  reports  show  that 
the  numbers  are  increasing.  At  Creg- 
gan,  in  tins  county,  the  poverty  is  so 
general  that  the  county  court  judges 
expressed  their  astonishment  at  the 
vast  number  of  civil  decrees,  and  in 
many  cases  stayed  execution. 

In  these  three  counties  there  are  two 
Catholic  dioceses,  and  I  received  let- 
ters from  the  bishops  of  both  of 
them. 

Bishop  Dorrian,  of  Down  and  Con- 
nor, wrote  that  in  his  diocese  : 

"  We  have  much  distress  in  many 
parts,  but  hunger  and  want  in  some 
three  or  four  parishes,  in  the  mountain- 
ous and  glen  districts.  ...  I  fear 
many  small  holders  cannot  labor  or 
seed  their  lands  but  shall  have  to  give 
up  their  farms  and  become  homeless." 

The  Bishop  adds : 
If  remunerative  employment  had 
been  started  at  first,  all  might  have 
gone  on  well ;  for  the  wages  of  one 
would  have,  in  a  sense,  supported  the 
entire  family,  and  upheld  self-respect 
without  idleness  and  degradation 
supervening.  It  is  now  too  late,  I  fear. 
It  is  a  dark  page  on  which  we  read  of 
distress,  and  yet  nothing  but  the  de- 
grading sympathy  of  process-servers,  or 
sending  round  the  hat  for  alms,  as  if 
we  were  unwilling  or  unable  to  earn 
our  bread — resources  of  industrious 
work  by  land  and  sea  on  every  side 
around  us." 

The  diocese  of  Dromore  includes 
part  of  the  County  Down,  the  County 
Armagh,  and  a  small  portion  of 
Antrim. 

Bisliop  Leahy  wrote  to  me  : 

*•  In  four  or  five  parishes  of  this 
diocese  there  prevails  a  fearful  amount 
of  distress,  and  unless  relieved  it  will 
probably  become  more  terrible  before 
the  ripening  of  the  potatoes.  .  .  .  The 
poor  who  hitherto  were  able,  though 
with  difficulty,  to  support  their  families 
from  the  produce  of  their  scanty  hold- 
ings, are  ashamed  to  solicit  alms  and 
go,  under  cover  of  night,  to  the  parish 
priest  to  make  known  their  wants." 


From  the  County  Monaghan  there 
are  reports  from  twelve  districts,  in 
which  there  are  seven  thousand  four 
hundred  and  forty-seven  persons  in 
distress.  Four  districts  report  that  the 
distress  will  increase.  At  Emyvale  the 
people  are  "  without  food  and  fuel  " — 
one  thousand  of  them.  At  Killeevin, 
there  is  "  no  corn,  no  seed  potatoes, 
no  credit ;  they  are  living  on  half  the 
necessary  amount  of  food."  From 
Trydavnet  they  write  :  "  Every  shil- 
ling from  every  source  exhausted ; 
thirty  families  to-day,  with  not  even 
meal  to  help  them."  At  Castleblay- 
ney  the  people  are  "  in  dire  distress  ; 
suffering  every  hardship  that  poverty 
and  destitution  can  inflict."  At 
Drum,  "  fever  of  a  violent  type  has 
broken  out  from  sheer  want." 

In  County  Cavan  there  are  reports 
from  thirty-six  districts.  The  first 
local  estimates  reported  over  twenty- 
six  thousand  (26,185),  latest  re- 
turns thirty-five  thousand,  with  six 
predictions  of  the  probability  or  cer- 
tainty of  an  increase.  I  have  not  the 
time  to  quote  even  a  single  sentence 
from  each  of  these  thirty-six  reports. 
I  can  only  select  a  sentence  or  two 
from  half  a  dozen  of  them.  In  Arva 
"  very  many  have  not  wherewith  to 
purchase  a  day's  provisions.  They 
are  so  deeply  sunk  in  debt,  their  credit 
gone,  they  are  now  reluctantly  obliged 
to  seek  the  bread  of  charity.  Farmers 
who  were  accustomed  to  employing 
laborers  are  wow  themselves  pressing 
for  relief"  In  Ballinagh  there  are 
over  one  thousand  four  hundred 
persons  in  distress,  the  "  distress  in 
many  cases  amounting  to  absolute 
destitution."  In  Ballymachugh  and 
Drumlummon  eight  hundred  and 
eleven  persons  are  "  in  need  of  the 
first  necessaries  of  life."  From  Bailie- 
borough  (where  there  are  eight  hundred 
and  fifty  destitute  persons)  comes  the 
sad  report :  "  Last  week  a  man  who 
held  six  acres  died  of  want;' if  no 
relief,  many  struggling  farmers  will  be 
driven  to  the  Avork-house."  Frora 
Glengevlin  comes  the  cry  :     "  Very 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


21 


many  are  actually  starving ;  others  on 
the  brink  of  starvation.  For  God's 
sake,  send  something  at  once."  In 
Killeshandra  the  "  poor  farmers  are 
now  eating  their  seed  potatoes  and 
last  store  of  meal ;  will  have  nothing 
to  maintain  themselves  till  next  crop." 
From  Templeport  comes  the  report : 
Distress  has  been  borne  in  silence  till 
they  reached  the  very  point  of  starva- 
tion." 

These  are  not  isolated  instances  ;  it 
is  everywhere  the  same  sad  story  of 
want  heroically  borne  by  a  peasantry 
who  would  never  beg  if  they  could  get 
work  to  do. 

From  the  County  Fermanagh,  I 
have  reports  from  eighteen  districts. 
The  reports  show  that  there  were 
nearly  thirteen  thousand  in  Ennis- 
killen.  The  distress  is  characterized  as 
"  deep  "  and  universal " ;  in  Ballag- 
hameehan,  as  "deepest";  in  Tallaghy, 
as  "great";  in  Blackbog,  as  "ex- 
treme"; in  Clenish,  as  " terrible."  In 
Derrygonnelly,  the  people  are  "  in 
great  want ;  no  food ;  no  fuel ;  starva- 
tion facing  them."  At  Alaguires- 
bridge,  nearly  four  hundred  arc  in  a 
starving  condition.  From  Tempo,  the 
report  is  one  six  words  long:  "No 
food,  no  fuel,  no  work."  At  Mulleek, 
six  hundred  and  thirty-four  persons  are 
in  distress — mostly  small  farmers,  who 
get  a  meager  living  by  turf-making. 
The  committee  write  from  Mulleek: 

"  It  is  sad  to  see  hundreds  crowded 
at  the  committee-door,  waiting  from 
twelve  o'clock,  noon,  till  eight  at 
night,- under  a  drenching  rain.  Sev- 
eral poor  men  and  women  came  to  the 
priest's  house  and  fainted  with  hunger 
and  exhaustion.  The  appearance  of 
the  poor  is  appalling." 

From  the  County  Tyrone  there  are 
returns  from  eleven  districts.  Thev 
report  eleven  thousand  four  hundred 
and  ninety  persons  in  distress,  and 
that  the  distress  is  increasing  in  three 
districts.  In  Dromore,  "  The  distress 
is  very  general :  no  potatoes,  no  seed, 
or  such  as,  if  planted,  will  produce 
famine  next  year."    In  Fintona,  "  Un- 


less prompt  and  generous  assistance 
arrives,  numbers  will  die  of  hunger." 
In  Egorten,  "  Great  distress  :  no  fuel, 
no  potatoes."  In  Kildren,  "  Many 
small  farmers  in  sore  distress,  without 
even  the  necessaries  of  life."  In  Pom- 
eroy,  "  No  money,  no  credit,  scarcity 
of  food  and  fuel."    And  so  on  ! 

Donegal  is  the  north-western  county 
of  Ireland.  I  have  a  large  number  of 
letters  and  forty-eight  official  reports 
from  Donegal. 

In  every  part  of  this  county  the 
destitution  is  appalling, — not  a  parish 
escapes, — and  the  distress  is  every- 
where increasing.  The  whole  county 
is  a-hungered  and  in  tatters.  Entire 
parishes  of  families  have  absolutely  no 
means  of  subsistence.  The  popula- 
tion of  the  county  is  two  hundred  and 
thirty-seven  thousand.  The  number 
of  persons  on  the  Relief  lists  is  eighty- 
seven  thousand — more  than  one-third 
of  the  population  of  Donegal. 

Major  Gaskill  is  one  of  the  inspec- 
tors of  the  Duchess  of  Marlboro's 
Committee.  I  found  that  he  invaria- 
bly underestimated  the  distress;  yet 
he  admitted  that  he  was  astounded  by 
the  scenes  of  misery  that  he  witnessed 
in  Donegal,  even  after  he  had  visited 
Galway  and  Mayo. 

The  aggregate  of  eighty-seven  thou- 
sand persons  in  distress  includes  those 
unfortunate  people  only  who  depend 
almost  solely  on  charity  for  their  sup- 
port. It  does  not  count  those  to 
whom  every  purse  in  America  would 
open  if  Donegal  were  an  American 
State,  instead  of  an  Irish  county. 

In  the  parish  of  Donegal,  for  ex- 
ample, "  two  hundred  families  are 
really  in  need  who  are  left  unattended 
to  from  want  of  funds."  In  Culdaff 
"four  hundred  and  twenty-five  families 
are  in  great  destitution."  In  Fannet 
"very  many  people  are  in  actual  starva- 
tion." From  Kilcor,  the  committee 
writes  :  "  If  we  fail  one  week  in  reliev- 
ing, the  consequences  would  be  fear- 
ful." In  Lower  Templecrone  and 
Arranmore  Island,  "  the  poverty  of  the 
people  is  such  that  if  immediate  step^ 


22 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


be  not  taken  to  relieve  the  distress, 
deaths  from  hunger  must  be  the  imme- 
diate result."  From  Killaghter  comes 
the  report :  "  The  whole  of  the  popu- 
lation of  St.  John's  Point  are  on  the 
very  verge  of  starvation,  depending 
upon  a  chance  fish  for  support."  At 
Glencolumbkill,  the  Mansion  House 
Committee  report :  "  Some  aie  eating 
the  black  sea-weed.'' 

Father  Logree,  of  Kilcor,  wrote  to 
me : 

"  I  can  safely  declare  that  along  the 
sea-coast  there  are  over  one  hundred 
families  who  have  no  bedclothes." 

He  means  in  his  own  parish  only. 

Father  James  Stephens,  of  Killybegs, 
describes  one  family  in  his  parish : 

"  Thomas  Gallagher,  of  Correan : 
eleven  of  a  family ;  five  of  them  with 
bass-mats  tied  around  them  for  cloth- 
ing.   No  fire ;  no  bed,  but  straw." 

Father  J.  Maguire,  of  Cloumany, 
wrote  to  me : 

"  I  was  called  to  attend  a  man 
who  the  doctor  declared  was  dying 
from  a  disease  brought  on  from  want 
of  nourishment.  The  man  was  rolled 
up  in  what  once  had  been  a  shawl. 
This  and  an  old  sheet  were  the  only 
covering  he  had  on  him.  The  house 
was  destitute  of  every  kind  of  furni- 
ture. The  children  were  literally  naked 
and  gathered  around  a  few  smolder- 
ing sods." 

The  seas  that  lash  the  stormy  coast 
of  Donegal  are  full  of  fish,  and  yet  the 
dwellers  by  the  sea-shore  are  fam.ish- 
ing  for  food.  Why  ?  The  English 
organs  of  the  Irish  landlords  say  be- 
cause the  people  are  improvident  and 
lazy.  It  is  a  lie.  [Loud  applause.] 
Deep-sea  fishing  requires  strong  boats. 
These  people  have  been  plundered  by 
their  absentee  landlords  so  mercilessly 
and  long  that  very  few  of  the  fisher- 
men can  afford  to  build  strong  boats. 
But  deep-sea  fishing  along  this  coast 
cannot  be  carried  on  at  all  until  piers 
and  sheltered  landing-places  are  built 
by  the  Government  to  protect  the 
fishermen.  The  Government  refuses 
to  build  them  unless  the  people  of  the 


district  contribute  one-fourth  of  the 
amount.  The  starving  tenants  cannot 
contribute  that  proportion;  and  the 
landed  gentry  who  could  afford  it  re- 
fuse to  contribute  a  single  shilling. 
[Hisses.] 

Do  you  ask  me  as  Americans  have 
often  asked  me — Are  the  landlords 
doing  nothing  amidst  all  this  distress  ? 
Certainly,  they  are  doing  something 
in  the  province  of  Ulster.  Listen  to  a 
report  of  how  one  landlord,  "  a  noble 
lord,"  helped  the  distress  on  his"  own 
estates  in  the  County  Cavan. 

It  is  the  Rev.  Father  Joseph  Flood 
who  speaks : 

"  In  the  midst  of  cries  of  distress 
around  me,  while  Protestants  and 
Catholics,  here  as  elsewhere,  are  strug- 
gling to  keep  together  the  bodies  and 
souls  of  this  year's  visitation,  I  was 
hurried  off  to  witness  the  heartless 
eviction  of  five  whole  families — thirty 
souls  in  all — of  ages  varying  from 
eiglity  years  to  two  years.  [Cries  of 
"Shame!"] 

"  At  twelve  o'clock  to-day — in  the 
midst  of  a  drenching  rain — when  every 
man's  lips  are  busy  discussing  how 
relief  can  be  carried  to  this  home  and 
that,  an  imposing  spectacle  presented 
itself  through  a  quiet  part  of  the  parish 
of  King's  Court. 

"  A  carriage  containing  Mr.  Hussey, 
jr.,  son  of  the  agent  of  Lord  Gorman- 
ston;  behind  and  before  it,  about  a 
dozen  outside  cars — with  a  resident 
magistrate,  an  inspector  of  police, 
about  forty  of  her  majesty's  force,  the 
sheriff,  and  some  dozens  of  as  rapacious- 
looking  drivers  and  grippers  as  I  ever 
laid  my  eyes  upon. 

"  There  is  a  dead  silence  at  the  halt 
before  the  firsc  doomed  door.  That 
silence  was  broken  by  myself,  craving 
to  let  the  poor  people  in  again  after 
the  vindication  of  the  law. 

"The  sheriff  formally  asks — 'Have 
you  the  rent  ?  ' 

"  The  trembling  answer  is  : 

" '  My  God !  how  could  I  have  the 
whole  rent — and  such  a  rent — on  such 
a  soil — in  such  a  year  as  this  ? ' 


LlI 
> 

O 


>- 

UJ 
< 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  REDPATH, 


23 


"  '  Get  out ! '  is  the  word,  and  right 
heartily  the  grippers  set  to  work. 
["  Shame  !  "  and  hisses.]  On  the  dung- 
heap  is  flung  the  scanty  furniture,  bed 
and  bedding.  The  door  is  nailed. 
The  imposing  army  marches  on  to  the 
next  holding,  till  every  house  has  been 
visited  and  every  soul  turned  out. 

"  At  this  moment  there  is  a  down- 
pour of  rain  on  that  poor  bed  and 
bedding,  and  on  that  miserable  furni- 
ture; and  an  old  man,  whose  genera- 
lions  have  passed  their  simple  lives  in 
that  house,  is  sitting  on  a  stone  outside 
with  his  head  buried  in  his  hands, 
thinking  of  the  eighty-three  years  gone 
by.  [Sobs.]  And  are  these  tenants  to 
blame"?  No  !  It  is  on  the  records  of 
this  parish  that  they  were  the  most 
simple-minded,  hard-working,  honest 
and  virtuous  people  in  it."  [Sensation.] 

This  is  the  sort  of  contribution  that 
the  landlords  have  made  to  the  distress 
in  the  province  of  Ulster.  [Hisses.] 

THE  WEST  OF  IRELAND. 

Let  us  now^  in  spirit,  take  the  shoes 
from  off  our  ftet  as  we  draw  nigh  the 
holy  ground  of  Connaught  and  Mun- 
ster.  There  is  nothing  on  this  earth 
more  sacred  than  human  sorrow. 
Christianity  itself  has  been  called  the 
Worship  of  Sorrow.  If  this  definition 
be  a  true  one,  then  the  Holy  Land  of 
our  day  is  the  W^est  of  Ireland.  Every 
sod  there  has  been  wet  with  human 
tears.  The  murmurs  of  every  rii)pling 
brook  there,  from  time  out  of  mind, 
have  been  accompanied  by  an  invisi- 
ble chorus  of  sighs  from  breaking 
human  hearts.  Every  breeze  that  has 
swept  across  her  barren  moors  has  car- 
ried with  it  to  the  summits  of  her 
bleak  mountain  slopes  (and  I  trust  far 
beyond  them)  the  groans  and  the 
prayers  of  a  brave,  but  a  despairing, 
people.  The  sun  has  never  set  on  her 
sorrows,  excepting  to  give  place  to  the 
pitying  stars  that  have  looked  down 
on  human  woes  that  excel  in  numbers 
their  own  constellated  hosts.  [Ap- 
plause.] 


I  have  heard  so  much  and  I  have 
seen  so  much  of  the  sorrows  of  the 
West,  that  when  the  memory  of  them 
rises  up  before  me,  I  stand  appalled  at 
the  vision.  Again  and  again,  since  I 
came  back  from  Ireland,  I  have  tried 
to  paint  a  picture  of  Western  misery; 
but  again  and  again,  and  as  often  as  I 
have  tried, — even  in  the  solitude  of 
my  own  chamber,  where  no  human 
eye  could  see  me, — I  have  broken 
down,  and  I  have  wept  like  a  woman. 
If  I  could  put  the  picture  into  words, 
I  could  not  utter  the  words.  For  I 
cannot  look  on  human  sorrow  with 
the  cold  and  aesthetic  eye  of  an  artist. 
To  me  a  once  stalwart  peasant — shiv- 
ering in  rags,  and  gaunt,  and  hollow- 
voiced,  and  staggering  with  hunger — 
to  me  he  is  not  a  mere  picture  of  Irish 
life  ;  to  me  he  is  a  brother  to  be 
helped ;  to  me  he  is  a  Christian  pris- 
oner to  be  rescued  from  the  pitiless 
power  of  those  infidel  Saracens  of  the 
nineteenth  century — the  Irish  landlords 
and  the  British  Government.  [Pro- 
longed applause.] 

I  know  Tiot  where  to  begin  nor 
what  county  to  select  in  either  of  these 
unhappy  provinces. 

Let  us  first  glance  at 


THE  PROVINCE  OF  MUNSTER. 

There  are  six  counties  in  the  prov- 
ince of  Munster.  The  Mansion  House 
has  two  hundred  and.  fifty  local  com- 
mittees there.  Their  reports  show  that 
there  are  in  distress  two  hundred  and 
thirty-two  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  fifty-nine  persons  in  this  prov- 
ince— in 

Waterford  (in  round  numbers) . .  8, too 


Tip])erary  " 

Limerick  " 

Clare  " 
Cork 

Kerry  " 


<( 
<( 

u 


.  17,000 
.  17,000 

.43,000 

.  70,000 

.75,000 


In  Waterford,  in  Limerick,  and  in 
Tipperary — with  their  aggregate  of 
forty-two  thousand  persons  on  the  re- 


24 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


lief  lists — the  distress  is  quite  severe  in 
some  districts,  but  it  is  neither  so  gen- 
eral nor  so  extreme  as  on  the  coast. 
The  miners,  the  mechanics,  the  labor- 
ers, the  turf-makers,  the  fishermen,  the 
cottiers,  and  the  small  fanners  with 
"  long  families,"  are  the  chief  sufferers 
in  these  counties. 

In  the  County  Cork  there  are  less 
than  one-eighth  of  the  population  in 
distress.  Eastern  Cork  is  a  fertile 
county.  It  contains  the  great  city 
and  port  of  the  South  of  Ireland. 
There  is  no  unusual  poverty  in  the 
east  of  it;  but  in  South-western  Cork, 
and  in  Kerry,  the  same  scenes  that  I 
called  local  eye-witnesses  to  describe 
in  Donegal,  and  that  I  shall  summon 
other  eye-witnesses  to  describe  in  Con- 
naught,  are  common  in  every  barony 
and  in  every  parish.  I  met  several 
Catholic  priests  from  South-western 
Cork  in  Dublin,  and*  I  received  more 
than  a  dozen  letters  from  as  many 
<3ifferient  districts  of  it.  Their  stories 
•were  all  alike, — only  the  scene  differed, 
—always  the  same  cries  of  distress. 
I  could  talk  an  hour  about,the  suffering 
in  tiiese  counties  alone. 

County  Clare  is  not  so  destitute  as 
Kerry  or  South-western  Cork,  for  the 
famine  broods  everywhere  along  the 
coast,  and  in  some  places  it  has  called 
.on  fever  to  assist  her — and  the  land- 
lords— to  crush  the  spirit  or  to  exter- 
minate the  Irish  race.  But  even  from 
Clare  we  hear  .of  "  little  children  and 
infants  crying  in  vain  for  food";  of 
whole  districts-=^I  quote  the  words  of 
the  committee-^"  actually  starving,  or 
threatened  in  the  near  future  with  star- 
vation"; and  at  one  parish — Cool- 
meen — of  '''a  crowd  of  a  hundred 
people  ready  to  fall  from  hunger." 
More  than  one-fourth  of  the  people 
of  the  County  Clare  depend  for  their 
daily  food  on  foreign  benevolence. 
What  need  of  words  in  presence  of 
this  one  fact  ? 

Out  of  every  hundred  persons  in 
County  Keny,  thirty-eight  depend  on 
charity  to  keep  them  from  death  by 
starvation.    From  every  part  of  the 


county  comes  the  same  sad  message : 
"  No  work,  no  food,  no  fuel,  no  cloth- 
ing." In  Valencia  Island,  last  winter, 
there  were  families  of  children  literally 
naked, — with  not  a  rag  to  shield  their 
little  bodies  from  the  cold  Atlantic 
winds.  Father  Lawler  wrote  that,  out 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  families  he 
visited,  one  hundred  were  without  a 
blanket  of  any  shape  or  description. 

Hunger  haunted  the  coast.  Father 
Maurice  O'Flnherty  wrote:  "No 
amount  of  word-painting  at  my  com- 
mand will  be  able  to  convey  to  you 
the  impoverished  and  wretched  state 
in  which  th-crse  poor  creatures,  livin? 
along  the  sea-coast,  are  steeped.  I 
know,  as  a  fact,  that  many — very 
many — among  them  have  been  living 
on  turnips  once,  and  sometimes  twice 
a  day  for  the  last  three  weeks.  I  am 
aware  that  several,  especially  heads  of 
families,  have  gone  to  bed  fasting,  in 
order  to  spare  something  for  their 
starving  children,  who  were  crying  for 
food.  Some  of  these  poor  creatures 
have  to  do  with  one  meal  of  "stir- 
about "  for  twenty-four  hours.  ("  Stir- 
about"  is  Indian  meal  boiled  with 
water  and  a  little  salt.)  In  all,  or 
nearly  all,  the  cases  we  visited,  two 
hundred  in  number,  not  one  had  a 
cow,  or  pig,  or  sheep,  or  seed  potatoes, 
or  credit,  or  anything  else,  except 
the  few  stones  of  meal  they  have  got 
from  our  Relief  Committee." 

I  will  just  give  one  short  extract 
from  one  report  out  of  fifty  reports  to 
the  Mansion  House.  It  occurred  in  a 
letter  from  Fcrreter  Dingle : 

"  The  word  '  distress '  very  inade- 
quately describes  the  situation  and 
suffering  of  many  and  many  a  family 
here.  They  are  suffering  from  that 
most  brutalizing  of  feelings  to  which 
humanity  is  subject — the  gnawing  of 
hunger.  Fancy  fathers  and  mothers 
going  to  bed  supperless  that  their 
children  may  have  something  left  to 
stay  the  pangs  of  hunger,  and,  after 
all  this  self-sacrifice,  these  children 
without  any  food  for  twenty-four 
hours !  " 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


25 


I  said  that  in  the  three  inland  coun- 
ties of  Munster — Waterford,  Limerick, 
andTipperary — the  distress  is  not  so  ex- 
treme as  in  the  coast  counties.  Yet  you 
will  err  if  you  think  that  the  poverty 
there  is  of  the  same  type  as  we  find 
in  our  American  cities.  What  we  call 
distress  in  America,  the  Irish  peasants 
would  thank  God  for  as  comfort. 

Dean  Quirke.  of  Tipperary,  for  exam- 
ple, wrote  to  me  that,  although  in  his 
vicinity  nobody  had  actually  died 
from  hunger,  yet  he  personally  knew 
men  in  his  own  parish  whose  lives  had 
been  shortened  by  the  famine.  And 
the  committee  at  Clopjher  wrote  to  the 
Mansion  House  that  "  farmers  hold- 
ing twenty  to  thirty  acres  of  mountain 
land,  come  down  to  the  Chairman, 
under  cover  of  night,  to  get  a  little 
Indian  meal  to  keep  their  families  from 
starvation." 

But  now  I  must  do  my  duty  to  the 
landlords,  and  tell  you  what  they  are 
doing  in  this  year  of  distress  in  the 
Province  of  Munster. 

When  I  wrote  to  Dean  Quirke,  of 
Tipperary,  and  asked  him  the  cause 
of  the  distress,  he  promptly  answered: 
"  Rack-rents,  bad  land  laws,  insecurity 
of  tenure.*'  After  he  described  the 
poverty  in  his  own  neighborhood,  he 
added  :  "  The  farmers  throughout  the 
whole  county  of  Tipperary,  seeing  they 
had  no  means  of  i)aying  their  rents  and 
their  debts,  held  public  meetings — gen- 
erally attended  by  the  clergy — at  which 
they  showed  the  impossibility  of  pay- 
ing the  amount  of  rent  that  they  had 
paid  in  prosperous  years.  I  presided 
at  one  of  these  meetings.  Not  one 
disrespectful  word  was  said  of  any 
landlord." 

I  hope  you  understand  that  it  is 
Dean  Quirke  who  is  speaking,  and  who 
was  chairman.  If  I  had  been  chair- 
man, I  think  there  would  have  been 
disrespectful  remarks  made  of  the  land- 
lords.   [Laughter  and  applause.] 

The  farmers,"  continued  Dean 
Quirke,  "  requested  an  abatement  of 
rent  for  the  present  year  of  distress,  on 
account  of  the  failure  of  the  crops  and 


the  low  price  of  produce.  .  .  .  Only 

some  six  or  seven  paid  any  attention  to 
this  reasonable  appeal,  .  .  .  while  the 
bulk  of  the  landlords  treated  the  whole 
proceeding  as  Commwiisin  l''^  [Hisses. J 

They  seem  to  have  the  same  breed 
of  landlords  in  County  Clare.  Father 
Kenney,  the  parish  priest  of  Scarife, 
wrote  to  me : 

There  are  two  hundred  and  ten 
families  now  in  want  in  my  parish. 
When  I  have  appealed  to  the  landlords 
to  take  into  account  the  depression  of 
the  times,  that  answer  has  been  that 
political  agitators  have  raised  the  cry 
for  their  own  political  purposes." 

Of  course,  it  is  always  the  lamb  that 
dirties  the  water  away  down  the  stream 
when  the  wolf  is  drinking  at  its  source ! 
[Applause.] 

When  I  was  in  Dublin,  I  had  along 
'talk  with  Lord  Randolph  Churchill, 
the  son  of  the  Duchess  df  Marlboro. 
[Hisses.] 

Oh !  don't  hiss  him.  He 's  a  pretty 
good  fellow — -for  a  lord.  [Laughter.] 
We  can't  all  be  born  in  the  upper 
ranks,  you  know — it  was  n't  his  blame 
that  he  was  not  bom  an  American  citi- 
zen. [Laughter.] 

Well,  1  am  going  to  tell  you  what 
Lord  Churchill  said,  in  illustration  of 
the  folly  of  the  reforms  that  are  advo- 
cated by  the  Land  League.  I  am  vio- 
lating no  confidence  in  repeating  his 
conversation,  because  he  knew  that  I 
would  report  it.  I  wrote  down  his 
remarks  in  stenographic  notes,  and 
submitted  the  manuscript  for  his  correc- 
tion before  I  printed  it. 

In  talking  about  Cork,  Lord  Church- 
ill said  that  there  were  six  thousand 
cases  of  "  absolute  want  " — those  were 
his  words — out  of  a  population  of 
thirty-one  thousand  persons  at  Skib- 
bereen.  The  Committee  of  the  Man- 
sion House,  at  Skibbereen,  at  a  later 
date,  report  that : 

"  The  poor  people  are  coming  to  us, 
starvation  depicted  in  their  looks,  with 
the  bitterest  tales  of  woe.  We  are 
hearing  hourly  enough  to  melt  the 
hardest  hearts." 


26 


FAMINE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


Father  Davis,  the  parish  priest  of 
Skibbereen,  wrote  to  me: 

"  Fotir-fijths  of  the  entire  population 
are  at  this  moment  destitute  and  beg- 
ging for  aid." 

This  is  a  very  much  larger  estimate, 
you  see,  than  Lord  Churchill's.  The 
lord  said  one-fifth ;  the  priest  said 
four-fifths. 

'•In  Castletown,"  said  Lord  Church- 
ill, "  out  of  a  population  of  14,000 
there  are  1,600  cases  of  distress." 

The  Mansion  House  reports  show 
that  there  are  now  2,232  persons  in 
distress  in  Castletown ;  "  in  the  most 
abject  state  of  destitution,"  they  say, 

without  food,  without  clothing,  with- 
out seed." 

"  In  Castletown,"  continued  Lord 
Churchill,  there  are  600  occupiers  of 
land  rated  under  ^^^4,  and  there  are 
700  more  who  rate  at  under  ;,^io. 
Here  we  have  a  Union,  with  1.300 
persons,  the  annual  value  of  whose 
holdings  does  not  exceed  ;£"io.  This 
raises  an  interesting  question  of  peas- 
ant proprietorship.  There  are  poli- 
ticians who  want  to  convert  these 
tenants  into  owners.  These  unfortu- 
nate people  have  not  got — at  the 
present  moment — any  available  means 
of  subsistence,  any  capital  with  which 
to  cultivate  the  land,  any  stock,  or  any 
credit ;  and  yet  it  is  proposed  to  make 
them  owners  of  the  soil.  When  they 
are  in  such  distress,  even  when  they 
hare  landlords  to  rely  on  in  some  degree 
to  alleviate  it — for,  of  course,  it  is  for 
the  interest  of  the  landlord  to  stand 
by  his  tenants — what  would  be  their 
condition  if  they  had  no  one  to  fall 
back  on  ?  " 

Well,  let  us  see  how  the  landlords 
stand  by  their  tenants  in  this  very  dis- 
trict that  Lord  Churchill  selected, 
vv-hen  he  made  this  challenge  for 
them. 

At  Drumbogue,  where  there  are 
1,300  persons  in  distress,  there  is  "not 
a  single  resident  landlord  in  the  dis- 
trict, and  only  one  of  them  is  giving 
work." 

At   Goleen,   the   Mansion  House 


Committee  say  that  exorbitant  rents  are 
the  cause  of  the  distress  there. 

At  Kilcaskin,  the  distress  is  attrib- 
uted to  bad  land  laws. 

At  King  V\' illiam's  Town,  high  rents 
are  linked  with  bad  crops  as  the  causes 
of  the  poverty  of  the  farmers. 

At  Cloyne,  excessive  rents  "  are 
named  as  the  cause  of  the  distress — 
and  it  is  added,  "  the  landlords  of  the 
farmers  in  distress  are  absentees." 

Bear  in  mind  that  the  Mansion 
House  has  no  sympathy  with  the  Land 
League,  and  that  this  is  the  evidence 
of  their  local  committees. 

Now  let  me  quote  from  my  own 
correspondents : 

Good  okl  Canon  Brosnan,  in  writing 
from  his  parish  in  Kerry,  near  by,  after 
describing  the  homes  of  his  people, 
adds : 

"These  miserable  holdings  are  let 
at  double  and  treble  the  Government 
valuation — frequent  instances  not 
being  wanted  in  which  such  crushing 
amounts  are  exceeded." 

Father  Davis,  the  parish  priest  of 
Skibbereen,  writes  to  me: 

"This  entire  district  is  held  under 
two  landlords — Sir  Henry  Beecher, 
Baronet,  and  the  trustees  of  Lord  Cran- 
berry. These  two  proprietors  have 
exacted  the  rents  without  the  reduc- 
tion of  one  cent — and^  they  have  not 
contributed  one  penny  to  the  meagre 
funds  of  our  committee."  [Cries  of 
"  Shame  !  "  and  hisses.] 

This  is  the  way,  my  Lord  Randolph 
Churchill,  in  which  the  tenants  can 
rely  on  their  landlords.  [Applause.] 

THE  PROVINCE  OF  CON- 
NAUGHT. 

And  now  let  us  enter  Connaught — 
the  land  of  human  desolation. 

Connaught  has  a  population  of  nine 
hundred  and  eleven  thousand  three 
hundred  and  thirty-nine  souls.  Out  of 
this  vast  multitude  of  people,  nearly 
one-half — or,  to  be  statistically  exact, 
four  hundred  and  twenty-one  thousand 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  persons — are 


A  LECTURE  BY 


JAMES  RED  PATH. 


27 


reported  to  be  in  extreme  distress  by 
the  local  committees  of  the  Mansion 
House.  From  every  county  come 
official  announcements  that  the  destitu- 
tion is  increasing. 

A  geographical  allocation  of  the 
distress  gives  to  the  County 

Leitrim  (in  round  numbers)  47,000 
Roscommon  *'  "  46,000 

Sligo  "  "    .  58,000 

Galway        "  "  124,000 

Mayo  "  "  143,000 


These  round  numbers  are  thirty- 
seven  hundred  and  fifty  under  the 
exact  figures.  What  need  of  verbal 
evidence  to  sustain  figures  so  appalling  ? 

From  each  of  these  counties  on  the 
western  coast,  and  from  every  parish 
of  them,  the  reports  of  the  committees 
give  out  the  same  dirge-like  notes  : 
"  No  food,"  "  no  clothing,"  "  bed- 
clothing  pawned,"  "  children  half- 
naked,"  "  women  clad  in  unwomanly 
rags,"  "  no  fuel,"  "  destitution  appall- 
ing," "privation  beyond  description,'* 
"  many  are  .  suffering  from  hunger," 
"seed  potatoes  and  oats  are  being 
consumed  by  the  people,"  "  their 
famine-stricken  appearance  would 
make  the  stoniest  heart  feel  for  them," 
"  some  families  are  actually  starving, 
and  even  should  works  be  started  the 
people  are  too  weak  now  to  work." 
[Sensation.]  These  saddening  phrases 
are  not  a  bunch  of  rhetorical  expres- 
sions :  each  one  of  them  is  a  literal 
quotation  from  the  business-like  re- 
ports of  the  local  committees  of  the 
Mansion  House!  ["Shame!"] 

In  the  province  of  Connaught,  the 
destitution  is  so  general  and  profound 
that  I  could  not  tell  you  what  I  myself 
saw  there,  within  the  limits  of  a  lecture. 
I  shall  select  one  of  the  least  distress- 
ful counties — the  County  Sligo — and 
call  again  eye-witnesses  of  its  misery. 

And  my  first  witness  shall  be  a  dis- 
tinguished bishop,  at  that  time  un- 
friendly to  Mr.  Parnell — Bishop  Mc- 
Cormack. 

The  Bishop  wrote  to  me  that  in 


each  of  the  twenty-two  parishes  of  his 
diocese  there  prevails  "  real  and  un- 
doubted distress  "  ;  and  that,  from  the 
returns  made  to  him  by  his  priests,  he 
finds  that  the  number  on  the  parochial 
relief  lists  is  from  seventy  to  seventy- 
five  per  cent,  of  the  whole  population 
of  the  diocese.  His  Lordship  adds 
that  this  state  of  destitution  must  last 
till  August. 

Good  words  are  like  good  coins — 
they  lose  their  value  if  they  are 
uttered  too  freely.  I  have  used  the 
word  distress  so  often  that  I  fear  it 
may  pall  on  you.  Let  us  test  it  in  the 
fire  of  the  sorrow  of  Sligo. 

Dr.  Canon  Finn,  of  Ballymote,  wrote 
to  me  that  the  priests  in  his  parish  tell 
him  that  the  little  children  often  come 
to  school  without  having  had  a  mouth- 
ful of  breakfast  to  eat,  and  that  vomit- 
ing and  stomach  sickness  is  common 
among  them. 

Why  ? 

"  I  know  whole  families,"  writes  the 
Canon,  "  that  have  to  supplement  v/hat 
our  committee  gives  by  eating  rotten 
potatoes  which  they  dig  out,  day  by 
day."  [Sobs.] 

Father  John  O'Keene,  of  Dramore 
West,  wrote  to  me  that  "  there  are  four 
hundred  families  in  his  parish  depend- 
ent on  the  relief  committees,  and  one 
hundred  almost  entirely  in  want  of 
clothing,  and  the  children  in  a  state  of 
semi-nudity."    ["  Shame  I  "] 

Four  hundred  families  !  Let  us 
look  at  the  mother  of  just  one  of  these 
four  hundred  families. 

Listen  to  Father  O'Keene  : 

"  On  Sunday  last,  as  I  was  about 
going  to  church,  a  poor  young  woman, 
prematurely  aged  by  poverty,  came  up 
and  spoke  to  me.  Being  in  a  hurry,  I 
said  :  '  I  have  no  time  to  speak  to 
you,  Mrs.  Calpin.  Are  you  not  on 
the  relief  list  '  '  No,  Father,'  she 
said,  '  and  we  are  starving.*  Her  ap- 
pearance caused  me  to  stop.  She  had 
no  shoes,  and  her  wretched  clothing 
made  her  a  picture  of  misery. 

"  I  asked  her  why  her  husband  had 
not  come  to  speak  to  me. 


28 


FAMIXE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


"  She  said  :  '  He  has  not  had  a  coat 
for  the  last  two  years,  and  as  this  is 
Sunday,  he  did  not  wish  to  trouble 
Thomas  Feeney  for  the  loan  of  one,  as 
he  sometimes  lends  one  to  him.' 

*  Have  you  any  other  clothes  be- 
sides what  I  see  on  you  ?  * 

'  Father,  I  am  ashamed,'  was  the 
reply ;  '  I  have  not  even  a  stitch  of 
underclothing.' 

*•  *  How  many  children  have  you  ?  ' 

*' '  Four,  Father,' 
'  What  are  their  ages  ?  ' 
'  The  oldest,  a  boy,  eight  years  ;  a 
girl,  seven  ;  another,  four,  and  a  little 
one  on  the  breast.' 

"  '  Have  they  any  clothes  ? ' 

" '  No,  Father.  You  may  remem- 
ber that,  when  you  were  passing  last 
September,  you  called  into  the  house, 
and  I  had  to  put  the  children  aside 
for  their  nakedness.' 

*•  •  Have  you  any  bed-clothes  ?  ' 

"  *  A  couple  of  guano-bags.' 

"  '  How  could  you  live  for  the  past 
week  ? ' 

" '  I  went  to  my  brother,  Martin 
MacGee,  of  Farrelinfarrel,  and  he  gave 
me  a  couple  of  porringers  of  Indian 
meal  each  day,  from  which  I  made 
Indian  gruel.  I  gave  my  husband  the 
biggest  part,  as  he  is  working  in  the 
fields.' 

"  '  Had  you  anvthing  for  the  chil- 
dren ?  ' 

"'Oh,  Father,'  she  said, 'the  first 
question  they  put  me  in  the  morning 
is :  '  Mother !  Have  we  any  meal 
this  day?'  [Sobs  and  groans.]  If  I 
say  I  have,  they  are  happy ;  if  not, 
they  are  sad,  and  begin  to  cn'.' 

'*  At  these  words  she  shov/ed  great 
emotion,  and  1  could  not  remain  un- 
moved. 

'•This,"  adds  Father^O'Keene,  "is 
one  of  the  many  cases  I  could  adduce 
in  proof  of  the  miser)-  of  my  people." 

Arc  the  landlords  doing  nothing  for 
these  people  ?  Certainly.  There  are 
nine  hundred  families  in  the  parish  of 
Bruninadden,  in  the  countv  of  Cork. 
Canon  McDermott  is  the  priest  there. 
Hear  what  he  wrote  to  me  : 


'  "  The  lands  are  in  part  good ;  but 
the  good  lands  are  chiefly  in  the  hands 
of  landlords  and  graziers.  You  can 
travel  miles  over  rich  lands  and  meet 
only  the  herds  or  laborers  of  some  ab- 
sentee landlord.  Thirty  landlords  own 
this  parish  ;  twenty-seven  of  them  are 
absentees.  The  three  resident  pro- 
prietors are  poor  and  needy  themselves. 
You  can  judge  of  the  condition  of  the 
tenant-farmers  and  of  their  relations 
with  their  landlords  by  a  statement  of 
facts. 

"There  are  in  my  parisli  two  iron 
huts, — one  to  protect  the  bailiff  of  an 
absentee  landlord,  the  other  to  protect 
a  resident  landlord. 

'•  Again,  in  a  district  containing  one 
hundred  and  sixty  families,  eighty-nine 
processes  of  ejectment  were  ordered 
;  to  be  served  by  the  landlords  ;  but,  in 
some,  cases,  the  process-servers  de- 
clined to  act ;  and,  in  others,  the 
processes  were  forcibly  taken  from 
them." 

It  is  not  always  a  pasrimc  to  serve 
processes  of  ejectment  on  a  starving 
and  desperate  peasantry.  [Applause.] 

The  good  Canon  continues  :  "  Allov>- 
me  to  state  the  condition  of  some  of 
those  on  whom  processes  were  to  have 
been  served : 

"  Pat  Grady,  of  Lugmore,  has  four- 
teen children,  thirteen  of  them  liv- 
ing with  him  in  a  small  hut.  He 
holds  about  five  acres  of  unreclaimed 
land,  for  which  he  pays  at  the 
rate  of  jr\  12s.  ($8)  an  acre.  He 
owns  neither  a  cow  nor  a  calf 
He  has  not  a  morsel  to  feed  his 
children  except  the  twent}--five  pounds 
of  Indian  meal  I  dole  out  to  him  each 
week.  To-day  I  saw  his  ticket  from 
a  pawnbroker  for  his  ver\-  bedclothes. 
His  children  sleep  on  straw,  or  on  the 
bare  floor." 

But  the  landlord  wanted  his  rent  for 
all  that.  [Hisses.] 

'•  Pat  Gormanly,"  ^^Tites  the  Canon, 
"  with  five  in  a  family,  is  precisely"  in 
the  same  destitute  condition.  He  is 
threatened  with  an  ejectment  for  non- 
payment of  rent,  while  his  family  arti 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


29 


rcarving  for  want  of  the  commonest 
food.    [  Hisses,  j 

"  I  could  adduce,"  he  concludes, 
"  hundreds  of  cases  quite  as  bad. 

"  Matthew  Dasey  came  three  times 
for  his  meal.  His  mother  had  been 
two  days  without  food.  He  himself 
staggered  and  fell  twice  from  hunger, 
on  his  way  home."  [Groans  and  sobs.] 

These  starving  and  staggering  peas- 
ants, when  they  ask  for  food,  receive 
from  their  landlords  processes  of  eject- 
ment.   [Hisses  and  sobs.] 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen : — I  shall 
call  no  more  witnesses,  although  I 
could  summon  hundreds,  of  character 
unimpeached  and  unimpeachable,  who 
would  tell  you  tales  of  wTetchedness 
quite  as  harrowing,  from  every  barony 
and  parish  of  the  West  of  Ireland.  I 
have  chosen  to  quote  local  testimony 
rather  than  to  give  my  own  evidence, 
because  some  hearers  might  have 
thought,  if  I  had  described  only  v/hat 
I  saw  myself,  that  the  truth  of  my  re- 
ports of  Irish  destitution  had  been 
warped  in  the  fires  of  my  indignation 
against  oppression  ;  and  because,  as  I 
have  always,  I  trust,  preferred  to  fight 
on  the  side  of  the  falling  man,  that 
the  wrongs  I  saw  had  been  unduly 
magnified  by  the  lenses  of  my  sympa- 
thy for  their  victims.  At  another  time 
I  -  may  tell  what  I  saw  in  Ireland. 
To-night  I  must  sum  up  my  evidence 
in  the  fewest  words. 

I  have  seen  sights  as  sad  as  most  of 
my  witnesses  have  described. 

I  have  seen  hundreds  of  barefooted 
and  bareheaded  mothers  standing  for 
an  hour  in  the  rain  and  the  chilly 
wind,  patiently  and  anxiously  waiting 
to  get  an  order  for  Indian  meal  to 
feed  their  famishing;  children  at  home. 

I  have  seen  a  family  of  five  boys 
dressed  like  girls,  in  garments  rudely 
fashioned  fi-om  potato-bags,  because 
their  parents  were  too  poor  to  buy 
boys'  clothing. 

I  have  visited  a  dozen  populous 
parishes  where  four-fifths  of  the  entire 
population  depended  for  their  daily 
bread  on  foreign  charity. 


i  I  have  been  in  several  villages  where 
every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  them 
would  have  died  from  hunger  within  one 
I  month,  or  perhaps  one  week,  from  the 
hour  in  which  the  rehef  that  they  now 
solelv  relv  on  should  be  refused,  be- 
cause  the  men  have  neither  a  mouthful 
of  food  nor  any  chance  of  earning  a 
sliilling,  nor  any  other  way  of  getting 
provisions  for  their  families  until  the 
ripening  of  the  crops  in  autumn. 

I  have  entered  hundreds  of  Irish 
cabins  in  districts  where  the  relief  is 
distributed.    These  cabins  are  more 
.  wretched  than  the  cabins  of  the  negroes 
were  in  the  darkest  days  of  slavery. 
The  Irish  peasant  can  neither  dress  as 
!  v.ell,  nor  is  he  fed  as  well,  as  the 
I  Southern  slave  was  fed,  and  dressed, 
and  lodged.    Donkeys,  and  cows,  and 
I  pigs,  and  hens  live  in  the  same  ^\Tetched 
room  with  the  family.    Many  of  these 
j  cabins   nad  not  a  single  article  of 
!  bedclothing,  except   guano-sacks  or 
I  potato-bags,  and  when  the  old  folks 
I  had  a  blanket   it  was  tattered  and 
;  filthy. 

I      I  saw  onlv  one  woman  in  all  these 
;  cabins  whose  face  did  not  look  sad 
and  care-racked,  and  she  was  dumb 
I  and  idiotic.  [Sensation.] 

The  Irish  have  been  described  by 
:  novelists   and   travelers    ns  a  light- 
I  hearted.and  rollicking  people — full  of 
I  fun   and  quick  in  repartee — equally 
I  ready  to  dance  or  to  fight.    I  did  not 
find  them  so.    I  found  them  in  the 
West  of  Ireland  a  sad  and  despondent 
I  people;  care-worn,  broken-hearted,  and 
j  shrouded  in  gloom.    Never  once  in 
I  the  hundreds  of  cabins  that  I'  entered 
I  — never  once,  even — did  I  catch  the 
I  thrill  of  a  merry  voice  nor  the  light  of 
!  a  joyous  eye.    Old  men  and  boys,  old 
I  women   and   girls,  young  men  and 
maidens — all  of  them,  without  a  soli- 
tary exception — were  grave  or  haggard, 
i  and  every  household  looked  as  if  the 
I  plague  of  the  first-bom  had  smitten 
I  them  that  hour.    Rachael.  weeping  for 
her  children,  would  have  passed  unno- 
;  ticed  among  these  wann-hearted  peas- 
i .  ants ;  or,  if  she  had  been  noticed,  they 


30 


FAAflNE  AND  THE  LANDLORDS. 


would  only  have  said :  "  She  is  one  of 
us."  [Sobs.]  A  home  without  a  child 
is  cheerless  enough — but  here  is  a 
whole  land  without  a  child's  laugh  in 
it.  Cabins  full  of  children  and  no 
boisterous  glee  !  No  need  to  tell  these 
youngsters  to  be  quiet.  The  famine  has 
tamed  their  restless  spirits,  and  they 
crouch  around  the  bit  of  ])eat-fire 
out  uttering  a  word.  Often  they  do 
not  look  a  second  time  at  the  stranger 
who  comes  into  their  desolate  cabin. 

My  personal  investigations  proved 
that  the  misery  that  my  witnesses  have 
outlined  is  not  exceptional  but  repre- 
sentative; that  the  Irish  peasant  is 
neither  indolent  nor  improvident,  but 
that  he  is  the  victim  of  laws  without 
Anercy,that  v/ithout  mercy  are  enforced; 
and  my  studies,  furthermore,  forced  me 
to  believe  that  the  poverty  I  saw,  and 
the  sorrow,  and  the  wretchedness,  are 
the  predetermined  results  of  the  pre- 
meditated policy  of  the  British  Govern- 
ment in  Ireland,  to  drive  her  people 
into  exile.  [Hisses.] 

This,  also,  I  believe  and  say — that 
Ireland  does  not  suffer  because  of  over- 
])opulaLion,  but  because  of  over- 
spoliation  ;  because  she  has  too  many 
landlords  and  not  enough  land-owners. 
[Applause.] 

Irish  landlordism  is  in  the  dock  to- 
day charged  with  the  high  crime  and 
misdemeanor  of  starving  a  great  people. 
I  am  one  of  the  jury  that  has  sat  and 
taken  evidence.  "Guilty  or  not  guilty  ?" 
My  verdict  is — guilty.  [Tremendous 
applause.]  The  Irish  people  will  never 
be  prosperous  until  Irish  landlord- 
ism is  abolished.  [Long  continued 
applause.] 

Let  me  say  a  few  words  to  my 
auditors  of  American  birth. 

Americans  believe  that  it  is  Eng- 
land that  rules  Ireland ;  and  that  the 
Irish  in  Ireland  enjoy  the  same  rights 
that  the  English  enjoy  in  England. 
The  belief  is  an  error.  England  dele- 
gates the  most  important  of  all  legis- 
lative powers — the  power  of  taxation — 
to  the  absentee  landlord ;  and  he  as- 
signs the  odious  task  of  impoverishing 


the  people  to  his  irresponsible  agents. 
Every  Irish  landlord  is  a  little  local 
Plantagenet  with  no  salutar}--  fear  of  a 
veto  by  strangulation  ;  and  the  British 
Government  is  only  his  vassal  and  his 
executioner. 

The  Irish  landlord  has  no  more  pity 
for  his  tenant  than  the  shark  has  for 
the  children  of  the  sailor  who  falls  be- 
tween his  jaws.  [Applause.]  If  Amer- 
ican landlords, even  in  law-abiding  New 
England,  were  to  act  as  the  Irish  land- 
lords act,  they  would  perish  by  the 
eager  hands  of  vigilance  committees. 
[Applause.]  If  Shakespeare  had 
kno\\-n  them,  he  would  have  made 
Shylock  an  Irish  landlord.  [Applause.] 
If  Dante  had  seen  the  misery  that 
these  miscreants  have  wrought,  as  my 
own  eyes  have  seen  it  in  the  West  of 
Ireland,  he  would  have  gone  there  to 
paint  more  lurid  pictures  of  human 
wretchedness  than  he  conceived  in  his 
Infcnio.  [Applause.] 

From  1847  to  185 1,  one  million  and 
a  half  of  the  Irish  people  perished 
from  famine  and  the  fevers  that  it 
spawned.  [Sensation.]  This  appalling 
crime  has  been  demonstrated  by  a  man 
whose  love  of  Ireland  no  man  ques- 
tioned, and  whose  knowledge  of  her 
history  no  man  doubted — John  Mit- 
chell. [Applause.]  These  victims  of 
landlord  greed  and  British  power  were 
as  deliberately  put  to  death  as  if  each 
one  of  them  had  been  forced  to  mount 
the  steps  of  a  scaffold.  And  why  ? 
To  save  a  vv^orse  than  feudal  system  of 
land-tenure — for  it  is  the  feudal  sys- 
tem stripped  of  every  duty  tliat  feu- 
dalism recognized  [applause]  —  the 
corpse  that  breeds  pestilence  after  the 
spirit  that  gave  protection  has  fled-^a 
feudal  system  that  every  Chrisrian  na- 
tion, excepting  England  only,  has  been 
compelled  to  abolish  in  the  interests  of 
civilization.  [Applause.] 

Now,  what  are  the  duties  of  the 
friends  of  Ireland  ?  Our  first  duty  is 
to  feed  the  people  who  are  starvin'g. 
If  I  have  opened  your  hearts,  I  beg 
of  you  that  you  will  not  say,  "  God 
help  them  !  "    Just  help  them  yourself. 


A  LECTURE  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


31 


They  don't  need  more  prayers.  They 
need  more  meal.  [Applause.] 

I  trust  that  I  have  shown  you  to- 
night, by  the  testimony  of  more  than 
ten  thousand  witnesses,  that  the  ac- 
counts of  the  Irish  famine  have  not 
been  exaggerated  in  America.  I  know 
that  not  one-tenth  of  the  sad  truths 
have  been  told  about  it.  It  is  true,  I 
hope,  that  not  more  than  a  score  or 
more  of  peasants  have  died  from  hun- 
ger. The  organs  of  the  landlords  say 
so:  and  it  is  almost  the  cnlv  truth  that 
they  have  told.  No  thanks  to  the 
landlords  for  this  mercy !  If  the  peas- 
ants had  depended  on  the  landlords 
for  help  in  this  their  time  of  need,  one 
hundred  thousand  of  them  would  lie 
moldering  in  the  graves  from  which 
the  charity  of  Australia,  and  Canada, 
and  America  has  rescued  them. 

My  statistics  were  brought  down  to 
the  I  St  of  March.  But  the  latest  dis- 
patches from  Ireland  by  cable  show- 
that  the  distress  is 'not  decreasing,  but 
increasing.  The  bishops  and  the  priests 
whom  I  met  or  who  wrote  to  me  be- 
fore I  left  Ireland,  and  the  Lord  Mayor 
of  Dublin,  within  a  week,  agree  in 
sanctioning  the  declaration  of  the 
Mansion  House  Committee  that,  "  if 
the  experience  of  former  famints  be  a 
guide,  the  greatest  distress  will  be  found 
in  the  months  of  June,  July,  and  Au- 
gust," and  that  "  it  is  to  be  appre- 
hended that,  whilst  the  crops  are 
ripening,  the  people  will  perish." 

A  few  days  ago,  the  London  Times 
said  either  that  the  "  distress  was 
diminishing,"  or  that  it  "  was  likely 
to  decrease  now."  Don't  believe  it ! 
The  London  Times  rejoiced  when  the 
famine  of  '47  swept  the  Irish  peasantry 
by  thousands  into  their  graves,  f  Hisses.] 
It  has  had  no  change  of  heart.  The 
landlords  would  like  to  see  the  Irish 
expelled,  even  by  famine  or  by  death. 
It  is  no  longer  tlie  old  cry  of — "  To 
Hell  or  Connaught !  "  The  landlords 
have  got  Connaught  now,  and  by  and  ] 

by  I  believe  that  they  will  get   . 

[Roars  of  laughter.]  You  seem  to 
nisunderstand  me.  [Laughter.]  What 


I  meant  to  say  was  that,  whereas,  once 
the  British  Government  drove  the  Irish 
into  Connaught,  now  it  wants  to  drive 
them  out  of  it.  [Laughter.] 

What  is  the  next  duty  of  the  friends 
of  Ireland  ?  After  you  have  fed  the 
hungry  peasant,  how  can  you  help  to 
improve  his  condition,  permanently, 
without  acting  in  violation  of  your 
duty  as  citizens  of  the  United  States  ? 

I  answer  without  hesitation,  and 
with  the  emphasis  that  profound  con- 
viction alone  can  justify,  you  can  help 
him  by  holding  up  the  hands  of  the 
Irish  National  Land  League  in  the 
irrepressible  conflict  now  begun  be- 
tween the  people  and  the  aristocracy 
for  peasant  proprietorship.  [Prolonged 
applause.] 

The  English  themselves  established 
the  precedent  of  giving  international 
aid  to  foreign  agitation  for  the  abolition 
of  social  wrongs  in  other  lands.  They 
gave  money  to  our  antislaver/  socie- 
ties. Let  us  pay  it  back  with  com- 
pound interest.  [Applause.] 

They  cast  their  bread  on  the  Ameri- 
can waters,  and  now  I  hope  it  will 
return  to  them  before  many  days.  [Re- 
newed applause.] 

There  are  honest  Americans,  true 
friends  of  the  Irish  race,  who  sincerely 
believe  that  your  duty  should  begin  and 
end  with  alms-giving.  I  di)  not  agree 
with  them.  I  honor  the  good  Samari- 
tan for  binding  up  the  wounds  of  the 
traveler,  but  I  also  believe  that  the 
thieves  who  waylaid  him  should  have 
been  brought  to  the  scaffold.  [Ap- 
plause.] As  long  as  the  landlords  have 
the  power  to  rob,  the  peasant  will  be 
his  victim.  His  power  must  be  broken. 
[Applause.] 

And  now,  with  all  my  heart,  I  con- 
gratulate the  Irish  people  that  they 
have  thrown  out  a  banner,  beneath 
whose  folds  beneficent  every  man  of 
every  creed  of  the  Irish  race  can  do 
battle — the  Banner  of  Peasant  Propri- 
etorship. [.Applause.]  A  banner  that 
the  Home  Ruler  may  carr)-  without  ab- 
juring his  just  aspirations  for  legislative 
independence.  [Applause.]  A  banner 


32 


FAMIXE  AXD  THE  PRIESTS, 


that  the  Separatist  may  adopt  without 
abandoning  the  other,  and  1  hope  the 
coming  flag  of  a  Republican  Nation- 
ahty.    [Loud  applause.] 

It  is  a  banner  of  peace  and  of  prog- 
ress. For  what-  was  statesmanship  in 
Germany  and  France  cannot  be  C-om- 
munisra  in  Connaught  and  Munster. 
[Applause.] 

Archimedes  said  that  if  he  could 
find,  outside  of  this  planet,  a  fulcrum 
for  his  lever,  he  could  overturn  the 
world.  The  fulcrum  that  is  needed  to 
overthrow  Bntish  tyranny  in  Ireland 
is  the  homestead  of  the  peasant.  [Ap- 
plause.]   The  man  who  owns  his  farm 


is  a  social  rock;  the  tenant-at-will  is 
a  thistle-down. 

Plant  a  race  of  peasant  proprietors, 
and  by  and  by  a  crop  of  armed  men 
will  spring  up  [applause] — a  race  of 
men  who  will  not  beg  for  justice,  but 
demand  it;  a  race  of  men  who  will 
not  agitate  for  independence,  but  de- 
clare it.  [Applause.] 

The  flag  that  will  yet  lead  to  Irish 
nationality  was  first  unfurled  by  the 
son  of  an  evicted  tenant — Michael 
Davitt  [applause] ;  and  it  is  now  up- 
held by  that  rarest  of  all  rare  men  in 
Ireland,  a  decent  landlord — Charles 
Stewart  Pamell.  [Applause.] 


n. 


FAMINE  AND  THE  PRIESTS. 


[At  a  farewell  banquet  given  in  Boston,  Massachusetts,  to  the  Rev.  Father  Fulton,  S. 
J.,  Mr.  Redpath  made  a  speech  on  the  "  Irish  Famine  and  the  Irish  Priests."  The  subjoined 
passage  of  it,  pubhshed  ori^nally  in  the  New  York  Irish- Anuruan,  has  been  translated  into 
nearly  every  language  of  Europe:] 


T  DISCOVERED  a  new  character 
i-  in  Ireland — not  new  to  Ireland,  for 
he  has  been  a  thousand  years  there — 
but  new  to  me;  for,  although  I  had 
heard  enough  and  had  read  enough 
about  him,  I  found  that  I  had  never 
kno\^■n  him.    It  was  the  Irish  Priest 

My  father  was  a  Scotch  Presb}-terian, 
and  I  was  reared  in  the  strictest  tradi- 
tions of  that  faith.  No  undue  influ- 
ence was  ever  brought  to  bear  on  my 
youthful  mind  to  prejudice  me  in  favor 
of  the  CathoHc  Church.  [Laughter.] 
I  can  recall  that  I  once  heard  read, 
with  a  somewhat  tempered  approval, 
certain  kind  and  conciliatory  remarks 
about  the  de\il — written  by  a  famous 
Scotchman  of  the  name  of  Robert 
Bums;  but  I  cannot  remember  a  sin- 
gle generous  or  brotherly  expression  of 
regard  for  the  Roman  Catholics  or  for 
their  faith.  They  were  never  called 
Catholics.  They  were  "Papists"  al- 
ways.  The  Catholic  Church  was  com- 


monly referred  to  in  my  boyhood  under 
the  symbolic  figiu-e  of  a  famous  lady 
— and  not  an  estimable  lady— who  had 
a  peculiar  fancy  for  scarlet  garmeEts, 
and  who  lived  and  sinned  in  the  ancient 
cit>-  of  Babylon.  [Laughter.] 

I  believed  that  I  had  put  away  these 
uncomely  prejudices  of  my  early  edu- 
carion — but  the  roots  of  them,  I  found, 
must  stiU  have  remained  in  my  mind ; 
for  how  else  ceuld  I  explain  the  surprise 
I  felt — even  the  gratified  surprise — that 
these  Irish  priests  were  generous  and 
hospitable,  and  warm-hearted  and  culti- 
vated gentlemen  ?  For  so  I  found 
them  always ;  and  I  met  them  often  and 
everj  where.  I  believe  that  I  have  no 
more  cordial  fiiends  anywhere  in  Ire- 
land than  among  the  Irish  priests ;  and 
I  am  sure  that  in  America  there  is  no 
man — the  words  of  whose  creed  do  riot 
keep  time  to  the  solemn  music  of  the 
centuries-coronated  anthems  of  the 
Ancient  Church — who  has  for  them  a 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH, 


53 


more  fraternal  feeling  or  a  sincerer  ad- 
miration. [Applause.] 

The  Irish  priest  is  the  tongue  of  the 
dumb  Samson  of  Ireland.  But  for  the 
Irish  priest  thousands  of  Irish  peasants 
would  have  been  dead  to-day,  even 
after  ample  stores  of  food  had  been 
sent  from  America  to  save  them.  Many 
a  lonely  village,  hidden  among  the 
bleak  mountains  of  the  West,  would 
have  been  decimated  by  famine  if  the 
priest  had  not  been  there  to  tell  of  the 
distress  and  to  plead  for  the  peasant. 

The  Irish  priest  justifies  his  title  of 
Father  by  his  fatherly  care  of  his 
people.  He  toils  for  them  from  dawn 
till  midnight. 

It  is  a  vulsrar  and  a  cruel  slander  to 
represent  the  Irish  priests  as  living  in 
idle  luxury  when  Irish  peasants  are 
famishing  around  them.  I  have  en- 
tered too  many  of  their  lowly  homes — 
as  a  stranger  unexpected — but,  as  a 
stranger  from  America,  never  unwel- 
comed — I  have  seen  too  often  and  too 
near  their  humble  surroundings  to  listen 
with  indifference  or  without  indignation 
to  aspersions,  so  unworthy  and  untrue. 
I  can  hardly  conceive  of  a  severer  test 
to  which  sincerity  and  self-sacrifice  can 
be  put  than  these  Irish  priests  endure 
without  seeming  to  be  conscious  that 
they  are  exhibiting  uncommon  courage 
or  proving  that  they  have  renounced 
the  world  and  its  ambitions  ;  for — edu- 
cated men  with  cultivated  tastes — they 
live  in  an  intellectual  isolation  among 
illiterate  peasants,  in  poverty  and  ob- 
scurity ;  and  they  neither  repine  at  their 
fate  nor  mdulge  in  the  subtile  pride  of 
self-conscious  self-consecration.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

For  one — and,  albeit,  one  of  this 
world  only — I  profoundly  honor  self- 
sacrifice  and  self-renunciation — what- 
ever banner  they  carry,  whatever  em- 
blem they  cherish,  or  whatever. tongue 
they  speak.  [Applause.] 

I  saw  one  scene  in  Ireland  that 
lingers  lovingly  in  my  memor}\  It 
was  at  a  meeting,  in  the  West,  of  a  local 
committee  of  the  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough's Fund.  An  Irish  "  lord  "  was 


the  chairman,  not  a  bad  man,  either — 
for  a  lord;  but  every  lord  has  the 
spirit  of  an  upstart,  and  this  lord,  at 
times,  was  insolent  to  his  betters — the 
toilers — and  a  little  arrogant  to  his 
equals — the  tradesmen  of  the  district. 

There  was  a  deputation  in  the 
room  of  dejected  peasants  from  one 
of  the  islands  in  the  bay  near  by. 

It  had  been  reported  to  this  com- 
mittee that,  at  a  sub-committee  meet- 
ing, where  the  orders  for  Indian  meal 
were  distributed,  the  tattered  and  hun- 
gry crowd  had  been  somewhat  dis- 
1  orderly ;    that   is  to  say,  they  were 
I  starving,  and  had  clamored  impatiently 
i  for  food,  instead  of  waiting  with  pa- 
'  tience  for  their  petty  allocations.  "  My 
I  lord  "  rebuked  their  ragged  representa- 
;  tives,  harshly,  and  in  a  domineering 
tone;  and,  without  asking  leave  of  his  as- 
sociates on  the  committee,  he  told  them 
i  that  if  such  a  scene  should  occur  again 
j  their  supply  of  food  would' be  stopped. 
'  I  was  astonished  that  he  should  pre- 
'  sume  to  talk  in  such  tones  before  any 
American  citizen — he,  who  ought,  I 
thought,  to   have  his   hand   on  his 
mouth  and  his  mouth  in  the  dust,  in 
presence  of  the  damnatory  facts  that 
he  lived  on  an  estate  from  which  peas- 
ants, now  exiles  in  America,  had  been 
evicted  by  hundreds,  and  that  neither 
he,  nor  his  brother,  a  marquis,  whom 
he  represented,  had  given  a  shilling  for 
the  relief  of  the  wretched  tenants  on 
his   wide  domains,  nor  reduced  his 
Shylock  rental,  although  thousands  of 
these  tenants,  at  that  very  hour,  were 
living  on  provisions  bought  by  the 
bounty  of  citizens  of  the  United  States 
and  of  other  foreign  lands. 

One    of   the    ragged  committee 
I  pressed  the  claims  of  his  famishing 
constituency  with  an  eloquence  that 
I  was  poor  in  words,  but  rich  in  pathos. 
I  "  My  lord  "  said  that  he  would  try  to  do 
I  something  for  them ;  but  he  added, 
and  again  in  a  dictatorial  tone,  "  that 
although  her  Grace,  the  Duchess  of 
I  Marlborough,  might  consent  to  reheve 
them,  they  had  no  right  to  expect  it; 
!  that  the  funds  were  hers  not  theirs; 


34 


A   WELCOME  TO  AN  IRISH  STATESMAN. 


that  the  noble  lady  was  under  no  ob- 
ligations to  relieve  them." 

The  poor  man,  hat  in  hand,  was 
going  away,  sorrowful. 

I  sat,  a  heretic,  beside  a  priest,  a 
republican  beside  a  lord ;  and  I  thought, 
with  no  little  inward  indignation,  that  I 
was  the  only  person  in  the  room,  and 
I  a  stranger,  whose  heart  throbbed 
witii  pity  tor  the  stricken  man.  For 
my  hands  were  gnawing  with  hunger — 
just  famishing — for  a  taste  of  his  lord- 
ship's throat.  [Laughter.] 

But,  as  I  looked  around  the  room, 
I  saw  a  sudden  flash  in  the  priest's  eye 
that  told  of  a  power  before  which  the 
pride  of  ancestral  rank  is  but  as  grass 
before  a  prairie  fire. 

*'  I  beg  your  lordship's  pardon !  " 
said  the  priest,  with  a  sublime  haughti- 
ness ;  I  do  not  agree  with  you.  The 
money  does  7wt  belong  to  *  Her 
Grace.'  She  holds  the  money  in  trust 
only.  We  have  a  right  to  it.  It  be- 
longs to  the  poor!"  [Applause.] 

The  lord  was  cowed;  the  peasant 
won.  [Applause.] 

No  man  but  a  priest,  at  that  table, 
would  have  dared  to  talk  in  that  style 
to  a  lord. 

More  than  eighteen  centuries  have 
passed  since  a  Roman  judge  said  to  a 
Missionary  of  the  Cross :  '*  Almost, 
thou  persuadest  me  to  become  a 
Christian."     I  do  not  believe  that 


there  has  lived  a  man  since  then  who 
felt  more  profoundly  than  I  did  at 
that  moment  the  spirit  that  prompted 
that  immortal  declaration.  As  long  as 
that  priest  was  in  that  room.  I  think 
I  was  a  loyal  son  of  the  Church.  [Ap- 

I  plause.] 

I  started  as  if  I  had  been  in  a 
dream.  Was  this  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury or  the  fifteenth  ?    For,  again,  I 

j  saw  the  arm  of  the  lordling  raised  to 
smite  the  poor  man ;  again  I  saw  rise 
between  them  the  august  form  of  the 

j  Mother  Church;  and  again  I  saw  the 
weapon  of  the  oppressor  broken  into 
fragm.ents  against  the  bosses  of  her  in- 

;  ^cible  shield.    [Applause.]    And,  as 

I  I  looked  at  these  fragments,  I  saw, 
among  them,  the  shattered  relics  of  the 
Pharisaical  conceit  that  I  had  been  the 
sohtar}^  sympathizer  with  the  poor  man. 
I  did  not  pick  them  up.    I  shall  have 

I  no  use  for  them  m  this  world  again. 

i  I  had  throv.-n  down  an  in\-isible  gage 

I  of  battle ;  the  priest  had  taken  it  up, 

:  and  I  had  been  defeated.  The  Cross 
had  conquered  me.  [Applause.]  And 
henceforth, — under  what  flag  soever  I 

•  may  fight, — whenever  I  see  the  white 
banner  of  the  Irish  priest  pass  by,  I 
shall  dip  my  own  colors  in  salutation 
to  it,  in  memory  and  in  honor  of  his 
beneficent  devotion  to  the  famishing 
Irish   peasant  during   the  famine  of 

,  1880.    [Long-continued  applause.] 


m. 

A  WELCOME  TO  AN  IRISH  STATES:\IAN. 

[On  the  22d  of  May,  the  Irish- Americans  of  New  York  gave  a  great  out-of-door  reception  in 
Jones's  Woods  in  honor  of  Michael  Davitt.  After  speeches  by  Mr.  Davitt,  Mr.  John  Dillon,  and 
Mr.  Mooney,  editor  of  the  New  York  Star,  Mr.  Redpath  was  introduced  and  received  with 
great  enthusiasm.     He  said :  ] 

Ladies  and  Gentlemen  :  1  ance  is  a  truth,  then  the  men  whom  the 

ONE  of  the  great  poets  of  the  olden  ;  gods  most  admire  are  the  peasantry  of 
time  has  said  that  the  gods  look  Ireland.  [Cheers.]  For  they  have 
down  in  admiration  on  every  brave  man  bravely  struggled  with  adversity  for 
struggling  with  adversity.   If  this  utter-     seven  hundred  years.  [CheersJ 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


35 


'The  truest  test  of  human  greatness  is 
not  to  be  found  in  the  power  to  rise  in 
the  world — for  sometimes,  you  know, 
both  in  American  society  and  Ameri- 
can poUtics,  the  buzzards  rise  as  well 
as  the  eagles.  [Laughter.]  The  touch- 
stone of  character  is  not  what  a  man 
does  when  he  is  standing  and  strong, 
but  v.'hat  he  does  when  he  is  weak  and 
on  his  back.  Weak  men  and  weak 
races  are  conquered  when  .  they  are 
once  overthrown ;  but  great  men  and 
great  races  spring  to  their  feet  again 
and  fight.  [Cheers.]  The  Irish  peo- 
ple have  been  overwhelmed,  the  Irish 
people  have  been  prostrated,  again 
and  again,  but  the  Irish  people  have 
never  yet  surrendered — the  Irish  peo- 
ple have  never  failed  to  strike  back 
whenever  they  have  had  the  oppor- 
tunity, and  they  have  never  failed  to 
make  the  opportunity.    [Cheers.]  .  .  . 

You  all  know  that  the  history  of 
Ireland  is  rich  in  dramatic  episodes. 
Let  me  tell  you  one  of  them  that  her 
coming  historians,  I  think,  will  chronicle, 
and  her  poets  of  the  coming  time  will 
sing.  During  that  long  reign  of  terror 
in  Ireland — from  1847  to  1852 — when 
the  Irish  people  fainted  and  staggered, 
from  hunger  and  fever,  into  their  graves 
by  tens  of  thousands  and  by  hundreds 
of  thousands,  the  landlords  of  Ireland, 
pitiless  as  death,  unpitying  as  famine, 
armed  crowbar  brigades  to  pull  down 
the  roofs  that  still  sheltered  these  gaunt 
and  gasping  peasants.  [Hisses.]  Dur- 
ing one  of  those  black  years,  the  crow- 
bar brigade  came  to  the  cabin  of  a 
farmer  in  Mayo.  He  was  an  honest 
man  and  honored  by  his  neighbors, 
and  he  had  never  failed  to  pay  every 
debt.  But  the  failure  of  the  crops  had 
ruined  him.  The  landlord,  deaf  to 
pleas  for  tmie,  turned  this  farmer  and 
his  wife  and  their  children  into  the  road- 
side. Down  came  the  roof  that  had 
sheltered  them,  down  came  the  cabin 
that  they  had  built.  [Hisses.]  Among 
he  children  thus  flung  into  the  world 
penniless,  unsheltered,  was  one  bright- 
eyed  boy.  He  looked  on  in  silence  at 
work  of  destruction.    This  boy  had 


been  brought  up  (as  all  the  boys  in  the 
West  of  Ireland  had  been  brought 
up)  in  the  belief  that  the  lords  of  the 
soil  were  not  the  social  only  but  the 
moral  and  intellectual  superiors  of  the 
"common  people,"  and  that  it  was 
right  and  proper  to  respect  and  even 
reverence  them.  But  this  demonry 
caused  this  boy  to  begin  to  doubt  and 
think ;  and  when  the  sons  of  the  peo- 
ple begin  to  doubt  and  think  it  is  time 
for  tyrants  to  begin  to  pray  and  trem- 
ble. [Cheers. J  By  and  by,  that  boy's 
thoughts  ripened  into  aspirations  and 
his  aspirations  into  actions.  He  soon 
saw — to  use  an  illustration  from  recent 
histor)' — that  if  to  pull  down  the  Ven- 
dome  Column  was  an  act  of  vandal- 
ism, it  was  equally  an  act,  and  a 
greater  act,  of  vandalism  to  puU  down 
the  cabin  of  a  peasant.  [Cheers.]  He 
saw  that  if  to  take  property  without 
recompense  from  the  owner  of  prop- 
erty is  communism,  then  •  the  great 
landlords  of  the  Weit  of  Ireland  are  the 
wickedest  communists  now  livins:. 
[  Cheers.]  That  boy,  when  a  young  man, 
was  arrested  and  by  perjured  witnesses 
he  was  sent  for  seven  years  to  prison.  In 
the  English  house  of  bondage  he  sen-ed 
a  full  apprenticeship  to  liberty,  and  he 
left  it  a  master  mechanic  in  the  noble 
art  of  destroying  despotism.  [  Cheers. ] 
Last  spring,  that  boy — now  a 
bearded  man — went  down  to  visit  the 
ruins  of  his  father's  house.  His  friends 
had  been  there  before  him.  They 
had  built  over  the  ruined  walls  of  his 
father's  cabin  a  platfonn,  and  on  that 
platform,  fearless  and  incorruptible  and 
unconquerable — time's  latest  incarna- 
tion of  the  indomitable  spirit  of 
the  Irish  peasantry — Michael  Davitt 
stepped  forth  to  unfurl  the  banner  of 
peasant  proprietor}- !  [Cheers.]  I  do 
not  know  in  our  own  American  history 
a  more  dramatic  episode,  save  one  only 
— and  that  was  when  our  boys  in  blue 
tramped  tlirough  Virginia  and  sang,  ten 
thousand  voices  strong,  as  they  passed 
the  spot  where  the  martyr  of  Harper's 
Ferry  died  for  a  race  oppressed, 
"John  Brown's  body  lies  a-niolder- 


36  A   WELCOME  TO  AiV  IRISH  STATESMAN. 


ing  in  the  grave,  but  his  soul  goes 
marching  on  1  "  [Cheers.]  Thatruined 
cabin  where  Michael  Davitt  threw  out 
the  flag  of  the  Irish  Land  War  will  be 
pointed  out  in  time  to  come  as  the 
Runnymede  of  the  Irish  people.  For 
a  greater  victory  than  Magna  Charta 
was  won  there.  The  English  barons 
wrested  from  King  John  a  compact 
that  has  been  praised  for  centuries,  and 
yet  it  is  the  charter  not  of  English 
liberty  but  of  English  bondage.  It 
granted  privileges  to  the  aristocracy — 
but  not  a  single  right  to  the  people. 
The  barons  demanded  everything  for 
themselves  and  granted  nothing  to 
their  followers.  I^iichael  Davitt  asked 
nothing  for  himself,  but  everything  for 
the  people.  [Cheers.]  That  meeting  at 
Irishtown,  in  the  County  Mayo,  was  the 
ceremony  of  the  coronation  of  liberty  in 
Ireland.  On  that  platform,  for  the  first 
time  in  Irish  histor}',  the  Irish  people 
themselves  came  to  the  front  —  no 
longer  looking  up  to  leaders  or  cham- 
pions, no  longer  following  men  of  a 
higher  social  order,  but  marching 
breast  to  breast,  as  if  in  military  array, 
and  receiving  the  words  of  command 
from  a  man  in  their  own  ranks. 
[Cheers.]  It  was  no  longer  the  Irish 
patrician  claiming  rights  for  his  cHcnts. 
It  was  the  dumb  Samson  of  Ireland 
himself  who  had  found  his  voice  and 
was  uttering  his  demands  for  justice. 
I  congratulate  Ireland  for  having  given 
birth  to  a  man  who  has  taught  in  lib- 
erty what  he  learned  in  bondage. 
He  has  broken  the  Irish  Samson's 
fetters  and  they  can  never  be  riveted 
again !  [Cheers.] 


But  he  has  a  higher  claim  on  yolir 
support  and  admiration.  I  think  he  is 
the  greatest  statesman  that  Ireland  has 
ever  produced.  [Cheers  from  the  audi- 

;  ence.  Mr.  Davitt  blushed,  and  said, 
pleadingly,  "  Oh  don't,  don't !  "] 

I  mean  no  blarney — I  didn't  kiss 

i  the  stone.  [Laughter.]  I  mean  exactly 
what  I  say.  What  is  statesmanship  ? 
It  is  not  the  power  to  see  and  to  de- 
nounce a  national  evil.  That  is  the 
function  of  the  reformer  or  agitator. 
The  statesman  is  he  who  has  the  gift 
to  see  a  wrong  and  the  cause  of  it, 
and  to  apply  a  remedy  that  will 
cure  it.  Among  all  Irish  leaders, 
Michael   Davitt,   and  he  only,  has 

I  clearly  seen  the  cause  of  Irish  mis- 
ery, and  he  only  has  had  the  cour- 
age to  prescribe  the  true  remedy. 
[Cheers.]  If  you  think  that  I  am  extol- 
ling our  honored  guest  extravagantly,  I 
ask  you,  when  you  go  to  your  own 
homes,  to  review  the  history  of  Ire- 
land, and  you  will  find  that  while 
one  leader  urged  that  this  branch, 
and  another  leader  urc;ed  that  another 
branch  of  the  upas-tree  of  English  mis- 
government  should  be  lopped  off, 
Michael  Davitt  was  the  first  man  whose 
clear  eyes  saw,  and  whose  brave  tongue 
said :  "  Cut  down  the  whole  tree — trunk 
and  branches  [cheers],  and  then  dig  up 

j  the  roots."  [Cheers.]  L'ntil  the  power  of 
the  Irish  landlords  is  utterly  destroyed  ; 
until  there  is  not  a  landlord — good, 
bad,  or  indifferent — in  all  Ireland  ; 
until  every  farmer  owns  his  own  land, 
and  tills  it — Ireland  will  never  cease  to 
be  a  rebel  at  home  and  a  beggar  abroad. 

I  [Cheers.] 


0 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATII. 


37 


IV. 

A  SOUPER-JEW'S  IRISH  POLICY. 

[Mr.  Redpath  was  a  guest  at  the  banquet  given  to  Mr.  Parnell,  at  Cork,  on  his  return  from 
the  United  States.    He  was  invited  to  respond  to  the  toast  of  "America."   Mr.  Redpath  said:] 


Gentlemen  : 

IF  I  had  been  called  on  to  respond  to 
the  loyal  toast  that  usually  opens 
British  festivities,  I  should  have  per- 
emptorily refused  to  do  so,  for  the  rea- 
sons that  I  was  a  man  before  I  was  a 
guest,  and  that  I  am  too  old  a  man  to 
become  a  flunkey.  [Applause.]  But 
for  a  very  different  reason  I  must  de- 
cline with  equal  peremptoriness  to  re- 
spond to  the  toast  of  America.  [Cries 
of"  Why?  Why?"] 

Mr.  Redpath.: — Because  America  is 
so  great  and  so  good  a  country  that 
there  is  no  man  either  great  or  good 
enough  to  represent  her.  [Cheers.] 
So,  I  must  speak,  if  I  speak  at  all,  not 
for  America,  but  as  an  American. 
[Applause  and  cries  of"  Go  on!"] 

I  am  going  home.  [Cries  of"  No, 
no."]  British  politics  are  too  much  for 
me.  In  my  own  country — in  the  IMark 
Lane  Express  of  the  mind  market — I 
think  I  would  have  been  quoted  as 
ranging  "  from  fair  to  middling "  in 
intelligence ;  but  here,  I  confess,  I  can- 
not understand  even  the  alpha  and 
omega,  the  first  and  the  last  verbal 
symbols  of  British  philosophy.  I  re- 
fer to  Jingo  and  Decomposition. 
[Laughter.] 

After  a  humorous  account  of  the 
origin  of  the  word  Jingo,  Mr.  Redpath 
continued : 

And  now  comes  that  word  of  direct 
import  —  the  philological  specter, 
evoked  from  the  tomb  of  a  dead  lan- 
guage to  frighten  Anglo-Saxon  men 
withal,  by  the  distinguished  country- 
man of  the  Witch  of  Endor — Beacons- 
field's  Decomposition  !  Heavens !  what 
a  fright  it  gave  England!  Irishmen 
do  not  get  scared  quite  so  easily  as  Eng- 
lishmen ;  for  where  banshees  are  as  com- 
mon as  good  landlords  are  rare  it 


needs  a  more  terrible  ghost  than  Bea- 
consfield  can  raise  to  frighten  them. 
[Laughter.] 

But,  gentlemen,  I  cannot  talk  with 
levity  about  this  man  Beaconsfield.  1 
have  no  respect  for  any  man  who  does 
not  love  liberty,  and  who  would  not 
fight  for  liberty — not  for  himself  only, 
or  his  own  race  only,  but  for  all  men 
and  for  all  races.  I  especially  despise 
men,  members  of  races  that  have  been 
oppressed,  who  aid  in  the  oppression 
of  other  races.  I  never  met  an  Irish- 
man in  the  United  States,  v;hen  slavery 
existed  there,  for  whom,  if  he  supported 
the  oppression  of  the  black  man,  I  had 
ever  more  than  two  words :  Damn 
him!  [Loud  cheers.  Here  a  priest 
rose  and  drank  Mr.  Redpath's  health.] 

Mr.  Redpath. — I  bej^  the  reverend 
Father's  pardon.  [Shouts  of  laughter.] 
I  did  not  mean  to  swear,  and  I  did 
not  swear — I  only  used  an  American 
expression  to  show  my  contempt  for  a 
recreant  Irishman,  and  every  Irishman 
who  does  not  love  liberty  for  all  men 
is  a  recreant  to  his  race  and  faith! 
[Cheers.]  But  with  all  my  heart  and 
soul  and  strength  I  especially  despise 
that  man  who,  by  his  genius,  his  fame 
and  his  high  rank,  is  entitled  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  representative  Flebrew 
of  our  times — the  representative  of  a 
race  that  for  nineteen  centuries  has 
been  persecuted  for  religion's  sake — 
who,  false  to  his  adopted  creed,  and 
false  to  the  grand  traditions  of  his 
people,  within  a  few  days  has  sought 
(as  Beaconsfield  sought  by  his  letter  to 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough)  to  arouse 
against  the  Irish  people,  for  partisan 
purposes,  the  religious  animosities  of 
the  English  nation.  [Cheers.]  For 
that  is  what  he  vried  to  do.  [Cheers.] 

Ireland    demands    Home  Rule. 


38 


A  SOUPER-JEW 


S  IRISH  POLICY. 


Beaconsfield  asserts  that  Home  Rule 
means  the  Decomposition  of  the 
British  Empire.  All  Jingodom  re- 
plies :  "  I  thank  thee,  Jev/,  for  teaching 
us  that  word,"  and  truly  they  seem  to 
roll  it  as  a  sweet  morsel  under  their 
tongues.  « 

What  does  it  mean  ?  I  have  trav- 
eled in  every  province  of  British  North 
America  from  the  ocean  to  the  lakes — 
in  Newfoundland,  in  Prince  Edward's 
Island,  in  Nova  Scotia,  in  New  Bruns- 
wick, in  Quebec,  and  in  Ontario.  Each 
of  these  provinces  has  an  independent 
legislature,  and  an  independent  exec- 
utive, and  five  of  them  have  clubbed 
together  to  support  a  sub-imperial 
Parliament.  Newfoundland,  with  about 
half  the  population  of  Dublin,  has  not 
only  a  legislature  and  executive  for 
the  Island,  but  a  city  government  for 
St.  John — with  such  privileges  as 
Dublin  never  yet  has  secured — and 
she  refused  to  join  in  the  New  Domin- 
ion Confederation,  although  all  the 
moral  and  social  influence  of  the 
Imperial  Government  was  brought  to 
bear  to  induce  her  to  join  it.  Is  not 
this  Decomposition?  Six  Home  Rule 
Governments  and  one  Home  Rule 
sub-Imperial  Parliament  for  a  popula- 
tion about  one-third  less  than  the  pop- 
ulation of  Ireland  !  And  what  is  the 
result  of  this  Decomposition  policy  ? 
The  Dominion  is  largely  settled  by 
Frencli  Catholics  whom  England  con- 
quered. These  original  colonists  have 
kept  themselves  aloof  both  in  social  life, 
in  religion,  and  in  politics  from  British 
society,  British  churchianity  and  British 
politics.  But  they  never  rebel.  The 
Dominion  is  largely  populated  by 
Irishmen  from  Connaught  and  Mun- 
ster.  They  hate  England  as  cordially 
as  they  hated  her  at  home.  But  they 
never  rebel.  Why?  They  can't  in- 
vent an  excuse.  [Laughter.]  They 
have  Home  Rule.  [Applause.]  British 
soldiers  and  Irish  constables  are  as 
thick  in  Ireland  as  lice  and  flies  were 
in  Egypt  during  the  land  agitation 
there.  Ireland  is  disloyal.  There  is 
not  a  British  soldier  from  the  Atlantic 


to  the  Pacific — not  one;  the  Canadians 
know  that  if  they  wanted  to  rebel,  men 
by  thousands  and  money  by  millions 
would  pour  over  to  their  aid;  yet 
Canada  and  her  sisters  are  loyal.  Now, 
if  this  is  the  work  of  Decomposition, 
wouldn't  it  be  a  v/ise  policy  to  try  the 
effect  of  that  sort  of  manure  in  Ireland 
[laughter],  where  the  crop  of  loyalty  is 
a  greater  failure  than  the  potato  crop 
ever  was  ?  [Applause.] 

Now,  take  an  aerial  trip  around  the 
world  in  forty  seconds,  and  you  will 
find  in  Van  Dieman's  Land,  in  New 
Zealand,  and  in  Australia,  again, 
independent  legislatures  and  indepen- 
dent executives  :  Home  Rule  every- 
where and  loyalty  everywhere,  al- 
though there  are  Irishmen  everywhere. 
[Laughter.]  There  are  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  men  in  those  colonies  who 
hate  the  British  monarchy,  and  yet  you 
could  not  kick  the  newest  world  out  of 
the  British  Empire.  Why  ?  Decom 
position ! 

I  have  been  in  two  disaflected 
countries  under  British  rule  —  Ja- 
maica and  Ireland.  There  is  no  Home 
Rule  in  Jamaica  and  no  Home  Rule 
in  Ireland.  The  principle  of  the  In- 
tegrity of  the  Empire  (as  this  souper- 
Jew  calls  imperial  misgovcrnment)  is 
enforced  in  the  tropics  as  well  as  in 
this  island  of  yours.  No  race  ever 
owed  so  deep  a  debt  of  gratitude  to 
a  foreign  government  as  the  black  and 
brown  men  of  Jamaica  owe  to  the 
people  of  England.  The  people  of 
England  forced  their  Government  to 
stretch  its  strong  right  hand  across 
the  Atlantic  and  break  the  shackles  of 
the  Jamaica  slave.  But  the  blacks 
are  poor  and  discontented;  and  the 
browns  are  poor  and  disaffected ;  and 
the  whites  growl  whether  they  are 
really  discontented  or  not.  Why  are 
the  people  discontented  ?  Because 
they  do  not  govern  themselves.  Why 
are  they  poor  ?  Why  is  Ireland  poor  ? 
The  toiling  and  hard-fisted  absentee 
landlords  and  their  organs  say  because 
you  are  lazy,  and  because  the  soil  is 
poor  and  overpeopled.  Well,  the  laziest 


J  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


39 


man  might  make  a  good  living  in  the 
tropics,  and  the  negroes  are  not  lazy. 
It  cannot  be  said  that  Jamaica  is  over- 
peopled or  that  her  soil  is  poor.  If 
God  ever  made  a  more  beautiful  or  a 
more  fertile  island  than  Jamaica,  He 
did  not  put  it  on  this  planet.  It  is  the 
brightest  gem  of  ocean  that  ever 
dropped  here  from  the  coronet  of  the 
Creator.  [Applause.]  Jamaica  is 
poor  as  Ireland  is  poor,  because  Eng- 
land maintains  there,  as  she  supports 
here,  the  power  of  the  absentee  land- 
lord,and  delegates  to  him,  unquestioned 
and  unchecked,  the  power  of  arbitrary 
taxation  in  the  form  of  rent.  And  Ja- 
maica, like  Ireland,  will  never  prosper 
until  the  absentee  is  made  a  permanent 
absentee;  until  no  man  is  permitted, 
under  any  pretext,  to  possess  land  that 
he  does  not  dwell  on  and  till.  [Ap- 
plause.] • 

I  thought  statesmanship  was  a  prac- 
tical  science — to  be  judged   by  its 


fruits;  and  yet  I  hear  your  Prime 
Minister  applauding  a  policy  that 
everywhere  produces  poverty  and  dis- 
affection, and  denouncing  as  Decom- 
position a  policy  that  yields  abundant 
mcrease  of  loyalty  and  prosperity.  I 
hear  great  statesmen,  so  called,  extoll- 
ing his  utterances. 

I  cannot  understand  it.  I  am  going 
home.  [Laughter.]  I  am  too  old  to 
comprehend  such  statesmanship. 
[Laughter.]  I  am  going  home — to  a 
land  where  no  appeals  are  made  to 
arouse  religious  animosities,  because 
even  toleration  is  not  tolerated  where 
all  men  are  free  and  all  men  are  equal; 
to  a  land  where  every  poor  man  can 
have  a  home  that  neither  crown  nor 
landlord  can  confiscate  or  disturb ;  to  a 
land — I  say  it  with  the  profoundest  rev- 
erence— after  God's  own  heart  [cheers], 
because  its  government  is  a  govern- 
ment of  the  people,  and  ^pr  the  people, 
and  by  the  people.  [Cheers.] 


CONFISCATION  AND  EXCOMMUNICATION. 

[Mr.  Redpath  was  at  the  village  of  Leenane,  in  Conneniara,  on  August  28,  1S80.  It  was  a  fair 
day.  He  was  called  on  to  make  a  speech.  "  1  saw  before  me,"  he  said  in  a  recent  letter,  "a  road- 
side full  of  barefooted  women  and  frieze-coated  men  ;  I  knew  that  there  was  a  fierce  spirit 
brooding  among  them  at  the  exactions  of  the  landlords,  and  that  if  some  bloodless,  but  pitiless, 
policy  was  not  advocated,  there  would  soon  be  killings  of  landlords  and  land  agents  all  over  the 
West ;  and  so  I  made  up  my  mind  to  advocate  a  thorough  system  of  social  ostracism — I  called 
it  social  excommunication — it  is  now  called  Boycotting— for  the  protection  of  the  tenants,  whom 
American  charity  had  kept  alive  since  the  preceding  autumn.  I  did  not  know  that  there  was  a 
short-hand  writer  present  until  a  full  report  of  my  talk  appeared  in  the  Dublin  papers.  This 
report  was  immediately  telegraphed  to  all  the  leading  journals  of  England  and  Scotland,  and 
if  I  didn't  *  wake  up  and  find  myself  famous,'  it  was  because  I  woke  them  up  and  found  myself 
famous.  Even  down  to  the  Coercion  debate  this  speech  and  the  Clare  Morris  speech  were 
represented  in  England  as  an  appeal  to  incite  an  insurrection  in  Ireland  I"  The  report  sub- 
joined is  from  the  Dublin  A'ation.  Mr.  Redpath,  after  the  cheering  had  s>ubsrded,  putting 
on  his  hat,  after  having  lifted  it  to  the  audience,  said :  ] 


YOU  will  excuse  me  if  I  keep  on  my 
hat.  We  Americans  never  speak 
with  uncovered  heads  to  any  one,  and 
never  lift  our  hats  except  to  return  a 
salutation.  [Cheers.]  .  There  is  too 
much  hat-lifting  in  Ireland.  I  want 
you  to  promise  me  that  you  will  never 
lift  your  hat  to  any  man  because  he 


owns  land  or  because  he  is  rich.  [-Vp- 
plause.J  Never  do  honor  to  men  who 
do  no  honor  to  human  nature. 

This  is  the  second  time  I  have  visited 
the  West  of  Ireland.  I  came  over  here 
last  winter  to  find  out  whether  the  Irish 
people  were  starving,  and  if  they  were 
s^^arving  why  they  were  starving.  When 


CONFISCATION  AND  EXCOMMUNICATION 


I  went  back,  the  AmericaRs  asked  me 
what  was  the  cause  of  the  misery  I 
described.  Was  it  the  potato-blight  ? 
No,  I  said,  it  is  the  landlord-blight. 
[Cheers.]  I  told  the  Americans,  and  I 
say  here  to-day,  that  the  exactions  of 
the  landlords  have  done  more  to  ruin 
the  Irish  people  than  the  potato-blight 
and  the  famine-fever  combined. 
[Cheers.]  I  do  not  come  to  Ireland 
to  make  speeches,  but  to  hear  them. 
But  now  that  I'm  here  

A  Voice. — "You're  welcome." 

Mr.  Redpath. — I  will  tell  you  how 
Irish  politics  look  to  an  American. 
The  first  meeting  of  this  kind  that  I 
attended  in  Ireland  vras  in  the  Queen's 
County.  I  saw  there,  as  I  see  here,  a 
number  of  constables  in  attendance, 
armed  and  equipped  as  soldiers.  I 
asked  Michael  Davitt  

A  Voice. — "  Three  cheers  for  Davitt." 
[Cheers.]  ^ 

Mr.  Redpath. — Whether  there  was 
likely  to  be  a  riot.  No,  he  said,  the 
consiables  were  there  to  try  and  ovcr- 
.awe  the  people.  But,  he  added,  they 
-can't do  it.  [Cheers.]  When  I  described 
that  meeting  in  the  American  papers,  I 
think  nothing  I  wrote  created  more 
indignation  against  the  British  Govem- 
nient  than  the  fact  that  the  people  of 
Ireland  cannot  assemble  peaceably  to 
discuss  their  wrongs  without  having  a 
squad  of  constabulary  on  the  spot  to 
overawe  them.  I  lectured  in  America 
.about  the  famine  here,  and  I  was  the 
means,  simply  by  telling  the  truth,  of 
raising  money  for  the  starving  people 
of  the  ^^'est.  The  organ  of  the  Arch- 
bishop of  Boston  said  I  raised  ^20,000. 
Now,  I  think  we  Americans  have  a 
mortgage  on  your  crops,  and  I  have 
.come  over  to  look  after  our  mortgages. 
I  didn't  raise  that  money  for  the  land- 
lords; and  I  am  here  to-day  to  find  out 
whether  you're  going  to  give  it  to  the 
landlords?   [Cries  of"Nol  No!"] 

Mr.  Redpath. — Faith,  I  think  that 
if  the  Irish  people  pay  over  American 
money  to  the  landlords,  the  best  thing 
that  could  happen  to  Ireland  woiild  be 
a  blight  of  the  men  and  let  the  ould 


i  seed  die  out  and  wait  till  the  young 
crop  of  champions  get  ripe.  [  Laughter 
and  cheers.]  I  know  that  the  young 
Irish  children — the  new  crop — arc  go- 
ing to  assert  their  rights. 

At  the  house  where  I  board  in  Dub- 
lin I  heard  the  ladv  laucrhins;  the  other 
day,  and  I  asked  her  why  she  was 
laughing.  She  said  she  had  just  come 
from  the  back-yard  where  her  children, 
two  girls  and  a  boy,  were  playing.  The 
boy  was  marching  up  and  down  with  a 
broomstick  on  his  shoulder  like  a  gun, 
and  the  girls  v/ere  pretending  to  be 

I  weeping  beside  a  lot  of  boards  that 
were  thrown  down. 

;      The  lady  asked  what  was  the  matter. 

;      The  boy  said :    "  We're  playing  at 

I  evictions,  and  the  constables  have  torn 

:  down  our  house,  and  I'm  waiting  till 
the  landlord  comes  to  shoot  him." 
["  Hear,  hear,"  and  cheers.] 

The  young  crop  is  all  right  and  I've 
faith  in  the  ould  seed  too.  [Laughter.] 

I  A  Voice. — "  Down  with  the  con- 
stables." 

Mr.  Redpath. — No ;  let  them  alone. 
Most  of  them  are  right  good  fellows 
with  Irish   hearts ;   they  sympathize 
with  their  people  ;  they  know  they  are 
doing  mean  work,  but  it  is  their  duty, 
and  they  are  not  the  men  to  blame. 
[Applause.]    Now,  I'll  tell  you  how  the 
Irish  land  agitation  looks  to  an  Ameri- 
can.    When  any  one  asks  for  money 
from  an  American  he  never  gets  it  un- 
less there  is  a  good  reason  for  giving  it. 
.  Before  we  would  pay  rent  we  would 
j  ask  a  landlord  for  his  title.  Suppose 
the  Irish  people  were  to  do  that,  what 
would  be  the  result  ? 
I      There  are  three  good  and  valid  titles 
;  to  land,  and  only  three.    The  best  title 
j  would  be  a  title  from  the  Creator.  The 
j  Bible  tells  us  that  Moses  gave  that  tide. 
Nobody  could  dispute  such  a  title.  But, 
then,  Moses  never  was  in  Ireland,  and 
so  we  needn't  discuss  this  supreme  title 
to  land.    The  next  best  title  to  land  is 
founded  on  the  truth  that  the  land  of 
I  a  country  belongs  to  all  the  people  of 
]  the  countr}'.    Now  if  all  the  people,  by 
their  representatives,  give  titles  to  pri' 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


41 


vate  property  in  land,  that  title  is  abso- 
lutely good,  subject  to  whatever  subse- 
quent modifications  may  be  needed  for 
the  promotion  of  the  general  welfare. 
That  is  the  title  by  which  private  prop- 
erty in  land  is  held  in  the  United  States. 
But  there  is  no  such  title  to  land  in 
Ireland.  The  Irish  people  never  agreed 
to  sell  their  lands  to  the  stranger. 
A  Voice. — "  Never."  [Applause.] 
Mr.  Redpath. — Before  the  English 
invasion  the  land  belonged  neither  to 
the  Irish  kings  nor  chiefs,  but  to  the 
sept;  and  the  legal  heirs  to  the  old 
Irish  septs  are  the  whole  people  of  Ire- 
land of  to-day.  The  third  good  title  to 
land  is  the  title  conferred  by  military 
conquest.  That  is  an  absolutely  vahd 
title  in  law — but  it  is  good  only  until 
the  conquered  people  re-assert  their 
rights  [cheers] — not  a  day  longer ! 
Now,  this  is  not  a  philosophical  the- 
ory— it  is  international  law.  Two 
or  three  hundred  years  ago,  the  Ger- 
mans were  at  war  with  France,  and 
France  seized  and  held  two  German 
provinces.  A  few  years  ago,  France 
and  Germany  went  to  war  again,  and 
Germany  seized  and  kept  its  old  prov- 
inces of  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  and  every 
Government  in  Europe,  including  the 
EngUsh  Government,  recognized  the 
right  of  Gemiany  to  hold  those  prov- 
inces. Well,  that  shuts  their  mouths 
when  you  say  that  the  lands  that  Crom- 
well stole  are  yours,  and  that  the  de- 
scendants of  the  psalm-singing  savages 
who  butchered  men  and  women  and 
unborn  babes  and  stole  their  lands  have 
no  legal  claim  either  to  rent  or  pur- 
chase-money. No  man  should  be  paid 
for  property  until  he  can  show  that  he 
has  a  just  title  to  it.  I  have  no  respect 
for  the  Irishman  who  talks  of  fair  rents 
and  fixity  of  tenure  as  a  solution  of 
Irish  distress.  No  rent  can  be  fair  un- 
less the  man  who  claims  it  has  a  valid 
title  to  the  land. 

Fixity  of  tenure  is  only  a  pretext 
for  legalizing  and  perpetuating  the 
curse  of  Cromwell.  The  larger  part  of 
the  soil  of  Ireland  is  held  by  tides 
given  by  Elizabeth,  Cromwell,  or,  viler 


still,  by  William  of  Orange — titles  ren- 
dered possible  only  by  the  shameless 
violation  of  the  treaty  of  Limerick. 
Why,  the  descendants  of  the  men  who 
now  hold  these  lands  ought  to  be 
right  glad  to  give  up  their  land  without 
money  and  without  price.  They  should 
be  grateful  that  you  do  not  insist 
that  they  shall  pay  back  all  the  rent 
that  they  have  collected  for  the  last 
two  hundred  years.  [Cheers.]  They 
ought  to  be  made  to  pay  you  compen- 
sation for  disturbance  to  your  ances- 
tors !  I  suppose  there  are  Fenians 
here  ?    [Cries  of '-Yes,"  and  cheers.] 

Mr.  Redpath. — Well,  now,  let  me 
talk  very  plainly  about  two  tender 
topics.  I  honor  every  man  who  sheds 
his  blood  for  his  country,  or  who 
is  willing  to  do  it.  But  there  is  no 
need  of  bloodshed.  You  can  get  all 
your  rights  without  violence.  Don't 
play  into  the  hands  of  the  English 
Government  or  the  landlords  by  doing 
acts  of  violence.  They  would  like  to 
get  you  into  trouble.  They  have  ruled 
you  for  centuries  by  playing  off  one 
party  against  another — Orangeman 
against  Catholic,  and  now  Catholic 
against  Atheist.  Don't  be  fooled !  It 
is  of  no  sort  of  consequence  to  you 
VN'hether  a  man  goes  to  the  Catholic 
church,  or  the  Protestant  church,  or  to 
no  church  at  all — it  is  none  of  your  bus- 
iness— but  no  matter  what  he  believes 
or  does  not  believe,  if  he  fights  for  Ire- 
land,  stand  by  him.  [Cheers.]  I  de- 
spise, from  the  bottom  of  my  heart, 
every  Irish  M.  P.  who  denounced 
Bradlaugh,  who  has  always  been  the 
friend  of  Ireland,  and  then  supported 
the  souper-Jew,  Bc'aconsfield,  who  has 
always  been  your  enemy.  Denounce . 
both  or  neither ;  but  if  you  must  de- 
nounce one,  curse  the  man  whom 
O'Connell  called  the  lineal  descendant 
of  the  impenitent  thief.  [Cheers.] 

Now,  1  s'hall  talk  very  plainly  about 
another  thin 5.  I  understand  that  an 
attempt  was  made  to  disorganize  this 
meeting  or  prevent  it,  because  a  priest 
somewhere  here  did  not  approve  of  it. 
If  that  is  the  truth  I  can  afford  to  speak 


42 


CONFISCATION  AND 


EXCOMMUNICA  TION. 


my  mind,  and  I  shall  do  it.  No  man 
in  America,  has  uttered  such  eulogistic 
words  about  the  Irisli  priests — words 
of  sincere  and  heartfelt  admiration  for 
their  conduct  during  the  famine — as  I 
have  written  and  spoken.  But  if  any 
priest  tells  you  that  it  is  your  religious 
duty  to  pay  rack-rents,  or  if  he  defends 
the  landlords  in  their  exactions — then 
tell  him  that  you  will  pay  him  the  duty 
you  owe  to  him  as  a  Catholic  in  spirit- 
ual affairs,  but  that  you  will  mind  your 
own  business  in  wordly  affairs  without 
his  help.  I  honor  the  Irish  priests  be- 
cause they  are  Irish  patriots,  and  be- 
cause, with  all  the  wealth  of  England 
and  the  landlords  to  bribe  them,  so  very 
few  of  them  have  been  muzzled  by 
money  or  cheap  pasturage.  But  be- 
cause you  must  shed  no  blood  and  do 
no  violence,  you  must  be  men  and  not 
allow  any  human  being  to  dictate  to 
you.  If  an  Irish  priest  is  a  patriot  also 
— only  a  handful  of  them  are  not  both 
— then  honor  him  both  as  a  priest  and 
patriot ;  but  if  he  is  not  a  patriot,  obey 
as  a  priest  only.  I  have  been  told  that 
there  are  in  some  parts  of  Mayo  priests 
who  say  you  should  pay  rents  in  order 
to  obey  the  injunction,  "  Render  unto 
Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar's." 
Why,  Caesar  is  dead.  [Laughter.]  He 
never  was  in  Ireland,  and  a  man  of  the 
name  of  Brutus  once  rendered  unto 
Caesar  the  only  tribute  justly  due  to  a 
tyrant — a  dagger  through  his  heart. 
Now,  don't  render  unto  any  sort  of  Irish 
Caesar  such  a  tribute.  There  was  no 
sort  of  need  of  violence  at  all.  Will  any 
good  Catholic  tell  you  that  you  rightfully 
owe  tribute  to  the  men  who  hold  lands 
that  were  stolen  from  your  forefathers 
because  they  refused  to  give  up  the 
Catholic  faith — because  they  refused 
to  swear  that  the  Mass  was  an  abom- 
ination ?  You  dishonor  your  martyred 
sires  by  advancing  such  a  plea.  Was 
Cromwell — the  demon  of  Drogheda — 
a  second  Moses,  empowered  for  ages 
to  tax  this  people,  and  dispose  of  their 
lands  ?  Englishmen  will  not  grant  the 
Crown  supplies  for  more  than  one  year 
at  a  time— they  know  they  can't  trust 


the  aristocracy — and  yet  it  is  claimed 
that  it  is  right  for  the  dead  Cromwell's 
'taxes  to  be  levied  in  Ireland  for  two 
hundred  years  after  his  death  for  the 

I  benefit  of  the  descendants  of  the  sol- 
diers who  massacred  your  forefathers — 
not  in  battle  only,  but  in  cold  blood. 
If  any  priest  teaches  such  doctrine  tell 
him  to  go  to  church  and  mind  his  own 
business — that  there,  and  there  only, 
you  will  obey  him.  [Cheers.J  It  is 
time  for  plain  talk  all  round ! 

We  Americans,  without  regard  to 
Cromwellian  theories,  do  not  believe 
that  any  class  of  men,  and  especially 
the  Irish  landlords,  have  any  right  to 
drive  the  native  population  off  in  order 
to  put  sheep  .and  bullocks  on  their 
homesteads.  There  will  be  no  pros- 
perity in,  Ireland  until  every  tenant  is 
his  own  landlord,  and  every  landlord 
his  own  tenant.  [Cheers.]  How 
are  you  going  to  conquer?  I  told  you 
not  by  bloodshed.  Don't  play  into 
the  hands  of  the  landlords  in  that  way. 
Do  nothing  that  the  constables  or  mili- 
tary can  arrest  you  for  doing.  If  you  do 
England  can  throw  fifty  to  one  against 
you,  and  that  is  what  the  landlords 
want.  [Cheers.]  Organize!  If  every 
tenant-farmer  in  Ireland  stood  shoulder 
to  shoulder  the  English  Government 
w'ould  be  powerless  to  help  the  land- 
lords. They  could  never  evict  a  v/hole 
people.  Be  united,  do  no  violence,  and 
by  the  operation  of  the  law  and  the 
result  of  your  union,  the  landlords  will 
soon  be  thrown  into  the  courts  of 
bankruptcy.    [Great  cheers.] 

Call  up  the  terrible  power  of  social 
excommunicadon !  If  any  man  is 
evicted  from  his  holding  let  no  man 
take  it.  If  any  man  is  mean  enough 
to  take  it  don't  shoot  him,  but  treat 
him  as  a  leper.  Encircle  him  with 
scorn  and  silence.    Let  no  man  or 

•  woman  talk  to  him,  or  to  his  wife  or 
children.  If  his  children  appear  in  the 
streets,  don't  let  your  children  speak 
to  them.  If  they  go  to  school  take- 
your  children  away.  If  the  man  goes 
to  buy  goods  in  a  shop,  tell  the  shop- 
keeper that  if  he  deals  with  him  you 


A  SPEECH'  BY  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


43 


will  never  trade  with  him  again.  If  the 
man  or  his  folks  go  to  church  leave  it 
as  they  enter.  If  even  death  comes, 
let  the  man  die  unattended,  save  by 
the  priest,  and  let  him  be  buried  un- 
pitied.  The  sooner  such  men  die  the 
better  for  Ireland!  If  the  landlord 
takes  the  land  himself  let  no  man  work 
for  him.  Let  his  potatoes  remain  un- 
dug,  his  grass  uncut,  his  crop  wither 
in  the  field.  This  dreadful  power,  more 
potent  than  armies — the  power  of  social 
excommunication — has  only  been  used 
in  our- time  by  despots  in  the  interests 
of  despotism.  Use  it,  you,  for  justice! 
No  man  can  stand  up  against  it  except 
heroes,  and  heroes  don't  take  the  land 
from  which  a  man  has  been  evicted. 
In  such  a  war,  the  only  hope  of  success 
is  to  wage  it  without  a  blow — but 
without  pity. 

You  must  act  as  one  man.  Bayonets 
shrivel  up  like  dry  grass  in  presence  of 
a  people  who  will  neither  fight  them  nor 
submit  to  tyranny. 

Americans  will  never  give  money 
again  to  the  Irish  tenants  if  they  take 
it  to  pay  landlords.  If  the  landlords 
are  poor  let  them  work  as  we  do.  If 
some  one  must  starve  in  Ireland  let  the 
landlords  starve.  [Cheers.]  Turnabout 
is  fair  play,  and  it  is  their  turn  now. 
But  be  united;  don't  quarrel  among 
yourselves.  The  landlords  have  ruled 
you  long  enough  by  stimulating  dissen- 
sion in  your  own  ranks.  They  are 
united.  Every  quarrel  among  patriots 
is   worse  than  a  hundred  evictions. 


[Cheers.]  Act  as  one  man  !  [Cheers.] 
[Mr.  Redpath  subsequently  found 
that  the  parish  curate  at  Leenane 
(although  he  did  not  name  him)  had 
been  unjustly  accused  of  hostility  to 
the  Land  League ;  that  he  was  absent 
on  clerical  duty  in  the  islands  at  the 
time  of  thejneeting;  and  that  he  was 
not  only  friendly  to  the  movement  but 
president  of  a  local  branch.  The  un- 
pleasantness originated  in  some  hered- 
itary feud  between  two  prominent 
famihes  in  the  neighborhood.  Mr. 
Redpath,  on  being  invited  by  Father 
Ganly  to  speak  at  his  meeting  at 
Maam,  replied  as  fellows : 

Clonbur,  September  25. 
My  Dear  Sir  :  I  regret  that  my 
duties  will  not  permit  me  to  accept 
your  invitation  to  attend  the  land  meet- 
ing at  Maam  on  the  3d  of  October 
next,  and  the  more  especially  as  I  am 
convinced  that  I  did  you  an  uninten- 
tional injustice  in  believing  that  you 
were  hostile  to  the  great  and  beneficent 
movement  that  seeks  without  violence 
to  restore  the  land  of  Ireland  to  the 
people  of  Ireland.  If  priests  and  peo- 
ple will  cooperate  and  work  with  a 
hearty  zeal  for  this  noble  end,  the  land- 
lords of  Ireland  will  soon  be  made  to 
feel  that  it  is  impossible  to  impoverish 
a  race  without  their  consent,  and  that 
in  the  presence  of  a  united  people  con- 
stables are  impotent  and  armies  una- 
vailing. Very  truly  yours, 

James  Redpath.] 


44 


MOST  TREASOXABLE  SPEECH^ 


VI. 

"A  MOST  TREASONABLE  SPEECH/' 


[Mr.  Redpath  was  at  Clare  Morris,  County  Mayo,  in  September,  1880.  During  his  stay, 
he  was  told  that  the  more  fiery  spirits  among  the  Fenians,  or  "advanced  Nationalists,"  angry 
at  the  refusal  of  the  Dublin  LS.nd  League  to  appropriate  money  for  the  purchase  of  rifles,  had 
sworn  that  they  would  break  up  the  next  Land  League  meetings  in  that  neighborhood.  Mr. 
Redpath  was  urged  by  a  leading  member  of  the  Land  League  to  make  a  speech  at  a  meeting  to 
which  the  leading  Fenians  would  be  invilcd,  in  order  to  show  them  that,  in  his  judgment,  ihc 
only  hope  for  the  Irish  peasantry  lay  in  the  adoption  of  a  bloodless  policy,  and  that  to  oppose 
any  sincere  effort  to  lighten  the  burdens  of  the  people  would  be  as  disastrous  to  the  hopes  of  the 
Separatists  as  to  the  methods  of  the  Agitators.  The  speech  had  the  effect  of  producing  harmony 
among  tlie  people.  It  was  telegraphed  quite  fully  to  the  English  and  Scotch  journals,  and 
aroused  a  whirlwind  of  abuse.  It  was  pronounced  a  most  treasonable  speech."  This  report  is 
from  the  Castlebar  Telegraph,  with  the  passages  that  had  to  be  suppressed  as  seditious  restored.  "I 


League 


A LARGE  meeting  of  the  Clare  Mor 
ris  branch  of  the  Land 
Avas  held  on  Sunday. 

The  Rev.  James  Corbett,  C.  C, 
was  called  to  the  chair.  He  spoke  in 
very  flattering  terms  of  the  services  of 
Mr.  Redpath,  both  in  arousing  Ameri- 
can sympathy  for  the  starving  ten- 
antry of  Ireland  during  last  winter  in 
America,  and  thereby  sending  large 
sums  of  money  to  save  them  from 
starvation,  and  also  by  his  vindication 
of  the  character  of  the  Irish  peasantry 
against  the  persistent  and  mahgnant 
aspersions  of  the  English  press.  [Ap- 
plause.] No  man  in  Ireland  or  out  of 
it  had  done  more  than  Mr.  Redpath  to 
expose  the  iniquities  of  Irish  landlord- 
ism, and  to  bring  the  Irish  land  ques- 
tion in  its  true  light  before  the  civilized 
world,  and  thereby  force  a  just  settle- 
ment of  it  before  the  English  Parlia- 
ment. [Loud  applause.]  His  name 
was  a  household  word  in  every  cabin 
in  Ireland,  and  his  tribute  to  the  Irish 
priests  one  of  the  most  touching  and 
eloquent  vindications  of  their  spiritual 
guides  that  had  ever  appeared  in  the 
English  language. 

Mr.  Redpath,  on  rising,  was  re- 
ceived with  loud  cheers,  and  cries  of 
"A  thousand  welcomes,  and  long  life 
to  you,"  and  "  Three  cheers  for  the 
Stars  and  Stripes."    He  said  : 

Reverend  Father  and  Gentlemen  : — 
This  is  my  second  visit  to  Clare  Morris. 


I  was  here  last  winter  to  see  and  to 
describe  the  distress  that  then  existed 
here,  and  one  of  the  sunniest  memories 
of  my  life  will  be  the  knowledge  that 
my  reports  of  the  misery  I  witnessed  in 
this  county  were  the  means  of  increas- 
ing the  American  contributions  for  the 
relief  of  the  starving  peasantry  of  Con- 
naught.  I  am  here  now  not  at  the  invi- 
tation exactly,  but  at  the  suggestion  of 
one  of  your  ]\Iayo  landlords — a  person 
who  carries  the  double-barreled  name  of 
Lord  Oranmore  and  Browne.  [Laugh- 
ter.] 

A  few  weeks  since  I  made  a  way- 
side talk  to  the  people  of  Leenane.  I 
told  them  that  after  I  went  back  to 
America,  whenever  I  was  asked  wheth- 
er it  was  the  potato-blight  that  had 
brought  on  the  famine,  I  said,  "  No; 
it  was  the  landlord-bhght,"  and  I 
showed  them  how  these  landlords  who 
shouted  out  so  fiercely  against  confis- 
cation owed  their  property  to  titles 
founded  on  the  foulest  confiscation,  and 
I  told  them  that  not  in  justice  only, 
but  in  law,  these  titles  were  good  only 
until  the  Irish  people  could  re-assert 
their  rights  and  take  back  their  lands. 
Every  lawyer  in  Christendom  knows 
that  this  is  good  law. 

Your  Lord  Oranmore  and  Browne 
denounced  this  argument  in  the  House 
of  Lords.  He  ended  his  brainless  if  not 
brayless  speech  by  advising  me  to 
"  attend  to  my  own  business."  That 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


45 


is  why  I  am  here.  My  business  in  Ire- 
land, this  time,  is  to  explain  to  the 
American  people  why  the  Irish  are  so 
poor,  although  they  are,  as  I  say  they 
are,  one  of  the  most  frugal,  and  thrifty, 
and  industrious  races  on  the  face  of  this 
earth  to-day.  Then  why  is  Ireland  the 
Lazarus  Nation  of  our  age — ever  show- 
ing its  wounds,  and  ever  begging  at 
the  gates  of  the  world's  banqueting 
halls  ?  I  say  it  is  because,- under  Eng- 
lish rule,  just  as  fast  as  the  Irish  toiler 
makes  money,  he  is  robbed  of  it  by  the 
lords  of  the  soil,  backed  by  British  law. 
[Applause,  and  cries  of  "  That's  so  !  "] 
My  business  in  Ireland  is  to  expose  the 
crimes  of  the  Irish  landlords,  in  order 
to  vindicate  the  Irish  people.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Now,  I  don't  like  to  be  lectured  by 
a  social  inferior,  and  every  king,  queen, 
and  lord  in  Europe  is  the  inferior  in 
rank  of  every  republican  on  this  globe. 
[Cheers.]  No  man  is  entitled  to  any 
respect  who  lives  on  the  toil  of  others 
and  renders  no  service  to  society.  [Ap- 
plause.] Kings  and  lords  are  the  human 
vermin  of  society,  who  lurk  and  feed  in 
its  festering  sores.  [Applause.]  I 
think  Lord  Oranmore  and  Browne 
— one  or  either  or  both  of  them  |  laugh- 
ter]— was  guilty  of  gross  discourtesy  in 
attacking  me  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
which  no  American  would  degrade  him- 
self by  entering.  [Laugliter.]  He 
might  have  sent  me  his  advice  by  a 
half-rate  message,  or  a  postal-card  that 
I  could  have  answered  without  self- 
abasement.  [Laughter.]  But,  as  a  cat 
may  look  at  a  king,  so  even  a  less 
worthy  creature — an  English  lord — 
may  give  good  advice  to  an  American 
citizen,  and  therefore  I  overlooked  the 
impertinence  of  this  person,  and  came 
down  here  to  investigate  his  pretensions 
to  be  regarded  as  the  good  landlord 
that  he  claims  to  be. 

Here  I  am,  in  a  room  so  near  to  Lord 
Oranmore's  castle  that  the  report  of  a 
rifle  fired  at  the  door  could  be  heard  in 
his  bedroom — if  he  were  in  it.  He 
said  in  the  House  of  Lords  that  he 
never  evicted,  a  tenant.   Men  of  Clare 


Morris,  don't  you  all  know  that  this  is  a 
falsehood  ?  {Cries  of  "  Yes."]  Don't 
you  know  that,  although  he  has  never 
had  the  courage  to  run  the  risk  of  for- 
cible evictions,  yet  he  raised  the  rent  so 
often  and  so  much  that  he  drove  out 
from  his  estates  all  the  more  enterpris- 
ing tenants  ?  [Cries, "  We  do,  we  do."] 
Don't  you  know  that  as  fast  as  the  ten- 
ants between  this  village  and  his  de- 
mesne improved  their  land,  that  he 
forced  them  from  it,  under  the  torture 
of  the  rack-rent,  until  they  were  all 
banished  ?  [Cries  of  "  Yes,"  and  "  We 
all  know  it."]  Don't  you  know  that  his 
estate  once  supported  hundreds  of  peo- 
ple, where  it  now  supports  only  a  few 
families  ?  [Cries  of"  Yes."]  Don't  you 
all  know  that  he  never  paid  a  shilling  for 
the  improvements  made  by  his  tenants 
that  he  confiscated  ?  [Cries  of  "  Yes."] 
Don't  you  know  that  every  acre  of 
his  fine  grazing  farms  was  reclaimed 
from  the  wet  bog  at  the  expense  of  his 
tenants,  and  by  their  own  unassisted 
toil?  [Cries  of  "  Yes."]  Don't  you  know 
that  as  fast  as  he  drove  out  men  and 
women  and  children,  he  put  in  cattle  and 
sheep  and  game  ?  [Cries  of  "  Yes."] 
Don't  you  all  know  how  he  induced 
his  tenants  who  had  good  holdings  to 
remove  to  the  edges  of  a  bog,  under 
the  pretext  that  he  would  give  them  fif- 
teen acres  of  good  land ;  and  that  he 
never  redeemed  his  promise,  but  has 
reduced  the  people  who  were  there 
then  and  the  people  who  removed 
there,  to  one  dead  level  of  pauperism  ? 
[Cries  of  "  We  all  know  it."]  Don't  you 
all  know  one  man  \\A\o  was  driven  in- 
sane, and  is  mad  to-day,  by  these  con- 
stant  robberies  and  persecutions? 
[Cries  of"  Yes."]  Don't  you  know  that 
he  broke  all  his  pledges  about  cheap 
pasturage  to  the  people  whom  he  trans- 
planted, and,  instead  of  giving  them  fif- 
teen acres,  took  not  onlv  half  the  land 
of  tenants  who  had  ten  acres  before, 
but  even  took  half  of  the  cabins,  that 
they  had  built  themselves,  and  jnit  these 
"  transplanted  "  tenants  into  them,  with- 
out consent  of  their  owners,  or  compen- 
sation ?  [Cries  of  "  Yes,  yes."]  Don't 


46 


MOST  TREASONABLE  SPEECH. 


you  know  that  he  is  not  content  with 
robbing  his  tenants  under  the  protection 
of  the  law,  but  that  he  is  constantly  an- 
noying them  about  their  religion,  al- 
though he  owes  his  title  to  the  services 
of  the  Catholic  clergy  rendered  to  his 
father  ?  [Cries  of  "  Yes."]  .\nd  don't 
you  know  that,  although  his  tenants 
were  all  starving  last  winter,  he  never 
gave  a  single  shilling  to  relieve  them  ? 
[Cries  of  "  Yes."] 

Well,  so  do  I  know  these  things ; 
and  when  I  get  time  to  attend  to  my 
own  business I  shall  tell  them  to  the 
whole  world.  [Applause.] 

[Mr.  Redpath  here  described  some 
scenes  that  he  had  witnessed  in  the 
County  Mayo  a  few  months  before.] 

Some  of  these  scenes  moved  me  so 
profoundly  last  -winter  that  I  could  not 
see  them,  nor  speak  of  them,  nor  even 
think  of  them,  in  America — three  thou- 
sand miles  away — without  tears  rushing 
to  my  eyes.  I  have  not  done  so  much 
crying  this  time.  If  his  reverence 
wasn't  here  I  might  confess  that  I  had 
done  a  good  deal  of  private  swearing 
this  time  [laughter],  and  if  your  good 
priest  called  me  to  account  for  it  I 
would  tell  him  that  a  Yankee  chaplain 
once  saw  an  act  of  cruelty  in  the  anny 
and  swore  at  it,  and  then  defended 
himself  at  mess  next  morning  by  say- 
ing that  no  man  could  be  a  good 
Christian  who  would  not  swear  in  such 
circumstances.  [Laughter  and  ap- 
plause.] I  can't  look  on  with  a  pulse- 
less indifterence  when  I  see  a  race  of 
noble  women,  the  wives  of  hard-working 
men,  the  mother^  of  splendid  boys  and 
of  comely  girls,  trudging  along  without 
bonnets,  without  shoes,  and  thinly  clad 
•in  all  weathers,  instead  ofbeing  dressed 
as  they  ought  to  be  dressed — warmly 
and  in  good  attire  all  the  time — and  in 
purple  and  fine  linen  on  Sunday  and 
holidays.  [Applause.] 

Queens  have  had  these  feminine 
trappings  quite  long  enough.  I  don't 
begrudge  them  such  luxuries,  not  be- 
cause they  are  queens  and  ladies,  but 
because  they  are  women,  for  no  woman, 
1  think,  ever  yet  was  dressed  as  well  as 


every  good  woman  ought  to  be. 
[  Cheers  and  laughter.  ]  But  it  is  a  high 
crime  and  misdemeanor  for  queens  or 
the  wives  of  lordlings  to  be  sumptu- 
ously dressed  by  the  robbery  of  the 
poor.    [Cheers.]    It  is  not  the  will  of 

I  God  that  such    things  should  be. 

i  [Cheers.]  God  tolerates  such  things 
as  He  tolerates  other  crimes,  but  it  is 

j  blasphemy  to  say  that  God  decrees  one 

j  class  of  His  creatures — and  the  mean- 
est class — to  live  in  riotous  luxury,  while 

I  the  true  nobles — the  class  who  work — 

i  go  naked  and  inhabit  foul  cabins  and 
sleep  beneath  dirty  rags,  and  live  on 
potatoes  and  Indian  meal  all  the  year 
round.  [Cheers.]  Down  with  the 
blasphemers  who  say  so  !  [Long  con- 
tinued cheering.] 

It  has  been  asked:  ''What  is  the 
remedy  ?  "  Ireland  will  never  be  as 
prosperous  as  the  character  and  industry 
of  her  people  entitle  her  to  be  until  the 
land  is  owned  by  the  tillers  of  the  land 
[cheers]  and  by  nobody  else  [cheers] 
■ — until  there  is  not  a  man  in  Ireland 
who  has  the  right  to  levy  a  tax  unless  he 
is  a  member  of  Parliament.  [Cheers.] 
Rent  in  the  West  of  Ireland  is  a  sys- 
tem of  taxation  by  hereditary  and  irre- 
sponsible tax-masters.  [''  Hear ! "]  Rent 
in  England,  and  elsewhere,  for  the  most 
part  is  simply  an  interest  on  investments. 

j  If  a  landlord  in  England  has  a  farm  to 
let  he  improves  it,  he  fences  it,  he 
drains  it,  he  builds  houses  and  offices 
on  it  at  his  own  expense.  The  tenant 
only  furnishes  the  stock  in  trade  to  work 
it.  Here  the  tenant  gets  a  bog  that 
would  not  raise  enough  to  feed  a  snipe, 
and  he  improves  it  himself  at  his  own 
expense,  and  just  as  fast  as  he  improves 
it  up  goes  the  rent.  Isn't  that  true  ? 
[Cries  of  "  Indeed,  it  is,"  from  nearly 
all  the  audience.] 

Talk  of  compensation  to  these  heredi- 
tary robbers  of  the  poor !  One  day 
Michael  Davitt  was  listening  in  America 
to  some  talk  about  compensation  to 
landlords.  He  asked  my  opinion. 
"  Well,"  I  said,  the  landlords  ought  to 
be  made  to  pay  back  every  shilling 
that  diey  ever  took  for  rent  for  200 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


47 


years,  unless  they  and  their  ancestors 
bought  the  land,  and  then  they  ought 
to  be  sent  to  work  at  hard  labor  for 
life  to  make  up  the  balance  due  if  they 
had  not  enough  to  pay  the  whole  of  it" ; 
but  as  a  compromise  measure  I  sug- 
gested :  "  Suppose  you  sent  them  to 
the  penitentiary  for  ten  years  a  head." 
[Cheers.]  If  ever  they  get  a  shilling, 
— these  men  who  hold  estates  by  con- 
fiscation,— it  should  be  paid,  not  as 
their  right,  for  they  have  no  equitable 
right,  but  as  you  would  give  ransom 
money  for  a  brother  who  has  fallen  into 
the  hands  of  bandits.  [•'•Hear,  hear."] 
Landlords  who  bought  land  or  whose 
ancestors  bought  land  should  be  paid 
for  it  by  the  state,  but  no  man  should 
be  allowed  to  hold  an  acre  in  all  Ire- 
land that  he  does  not  live  on  and  till. 
[Cheers.] 

Land  for  the  people  is  not  enough ; 
you  ought  never  to  cease  to  insist  that 
Ireland  must  be  ruled  by  the  Irish. 
[Cheers.]  After  you  have  got  the  land 
and  an  Irish  ParHament,  then,  if  the 
people  of  Ireland  demand  nationality — 
a  separate  nationality — they  have  the 
right  and  it  is  their  duty  to  work  for  it. 
[Cheers.]  But  this  last  right  should  be 
discussed  apart  from  the  other  rights 
of  Home  Rule  and  of  land  for  the  peo- 
ple. I  cannot  understand  how  any 
Irishman  would  be  satisfied  even  with 
the  land  for  the  people  and  Home 
Rule.  If  I  were  an  Irishman  I  should 
never  cease  to  work  for  the  independ- 
ence of  Ireland.  [Cheers.]  Yet  to 
me  it  seems  self-evident  that  you  will 
never  achieve  independence  except  by 
the  sword ;  and  if  you  believe  that  I  am 
a  friend  of  Ireland  I  shall  tell  you  why. 
[Cries  of  "  Go  on  !  "  and  applause.] 
You  should  never  allow  anv  one  but  a 
friend  even  to  discuss  this  question 
with  you ;  for  it  is  an  insult  to  ever)' 
Irishman  to  assume,  as  all  arguments 
against  Irish  nationality  assume,  that 
Ireland  has  not  the  right  of  self-gov- 
ernment, in  the  sense  of  independence, 
and  that  she  could  not  govern  herself 
as  well  as  Switzerland,  or  France,  or 
Belgium  or  any  other  nation.  [Cheers.] 


As  for  England,  she  never  has  governed 
herself — a  small  class  has  ruled  her 
people  always.* 
I      But  first  let  me  sav  that  there  is  a 
power  before  which  all  nations  and 
legislatures  now  must  bow — a  power 
!  that  as  Irishmen  you  ought  especially 
to  respect,  for  it  was  first  called  into 
political  action  by  an  Irishman  and  the  • 
;  greatest  of  all  Irish  leaders — Daniel 
j  O'Connell.   [Cheers.]    It  is  organized 
j  public  opinion.    I  think  that  by  that 
power  alone  you  can  secure  the  land 
for  the  people,  and  secure  Home  Rule. 
!  Let  me  tell  you  how. 
i      How   has  England  kept  its  hold 
i  over  Ireland  for  seven  hundred  years? 

Just  as  it  got  it  at  the  beginning — by 
;  the  quarrels  of  the  Irish  among  them- 
i  selves.    How  have  the  landlords  been 
'  able  to  keep  you  all  in  rags  and  wretch- 
•  edness  ?     By   your  quarrels  among 
yourselves.     If  Ireland  had  ever  been 
1  united,   England   would  have  been 
I  forced   to   do  justice   to  her.  The 
remedy  for  Ireland's  ills  is  so  simple 
that,  like  the  prophet's  order — "Go  wash 
,  in  the  Jordan  and  be  clean" — I  fear  it 
may  seem  less  attractive  than  learned 
disquisitions  about  the  Brehon  law  or 
Portadown  leases,  or  those  quack  pre- 
scriptions that  never  cure— commis- 
sions of  inquiry.    Ufiiic  !   Ireland  will 
never  secure  her  full  rights  unless  and 
;  until  all  tlie  great  classes  and  factions 
I  of  the  "common  people"  are  united 
in  one  purpose,  bloodless  in  its  method, 
but  inflexible  in  its  spirit,  until  Catholic 
,  and  Protestant,  saint  and  sinner,  Ulster 
I  as  well  as  Connaught,  are  fused  into  one 
!  resistless  body  to  demand  that  the 
I  land   of  Ireland   shall   become  the 
!  property  of  the  people  of  Ireland,  and 
I  that  the  laws  of  Ireland   shall  be 
framed  by  the  people  of  Ireland  in  an 
I  Irish  Parliament.  [Applause.] 

The  toilers  of  Ireland  must  do  as  the 
j  English  mechanics  have  done;  they 
I   .  

;       *"  English  liberty,"  said  >fr.  Redpath,  at 

I    Chicago,    is  the  right  that  the  ruling  classes 
of  England  enjoy  of  robbing  the  toiling  classes 
I   under  the  forms  of  law." 


48 


''A  MOST  TREASONABLE  SPEECH: 


must  form  an  organization  that  can  be 
wielded  as  if  it  were  a  single  body, 
each  member  of  it  loyally  protecting 
every  other  member,  so  that  the  poor- 
est fisherman  in  Donegal,  the  hungriest 
conacre  man  in  Connaught,  and  the 
most  ragged  tenant  in  Kerry  may  be- 
lieve and  know  that  before  a  rapacious 
absentee  landlord  can  bring  the  crow- 
bar to  destroy  his  humble  cabin,  he 
must  first  pass  through  the  solid  pha- 
lanx of  the  people  of  Ireland.  [Ap- 
plause.] You  have  all  heard  the 
trades-unions  of  England  denounced, 
but  whoever  has  studied  their  history 
will  tell  you  that  they  saved  the  Eng- 
lish mechanic  from  the  condition  of  a 
serf. 

When  an  honest  tenant,  unable  to 
pay  his  rent  on  account  of  bad  crops, 
is  evicted  from  Lis  farm,  let  no  man 
take  it ;  but  if  any  man  does  take  it, 
do  not  speak  to  him,  or  buy  from  him, 
or  sell  to  him,  or  work  for  him,  or 
stand  at  the  same  altar  with  him — let 
him  feel  that  he  is  accursed  and  cast 
out  from  all  your  sympathies,  he  and 
every  member  of  his  family.  Unless 
you  do  so,  there  is  no  hope  for  you, 
because  as  long  as  tenants  will  hire 
landlords  will  evict.  [Applause.]  Un- 
til this  is  done,  until  you  have  a  solid 
Ireland,  it  is  idle  to  believe  that  the 
absentee  landlords  will  consent  to  sell 
their  estates  in  Ireland.  But  as  soon 
as  this  union  is  made  perfect,  as  soon 
as  all  Ireland  is  a  "  United  Irishman," 
the  landlords  will  be  powerless ;  for  a 
universal  strike  against  rent  will  at 
once  force  the  EngHsh  Parliament  to 
act,  and  the  world  to  listen  and  in- 
quire into  the  causes  of  this  national 
action.  Irish  landlordism  is  so  mon- 
strous an  iniquity  that  it  can  live  only 
in  darkness  ;  drag  it  to  the  blazing  bar 
of  the  world's  public  opinion,  and  no 
plea  except  the  plea  of  guilty  would 
be  entered  against  it.  [Applause.] 
Suppose,  for  example,  that  every  peas- 
ant in  the  West  of  Ireland  was  moved 
by  one  spirit,  what  could  Lord  Oran- 
more  and  Browne,  or  the  Earl  of 
Lucan,  or  the  Marquis  of  Sligo  do  if 


every  man  refused  to  work  for  him,  as 
a  herd,  or  a  laborer,  or  a  gamekeeper  ? 
They  could  not  bring  in  strangers  ? 
[Cries  of  "  Oh  !  no  !  "]  They  would 
be  obliged  to  sell  their  estates,  or  re- 
store the  tenants  to  the  rich  lands  from 
which  they  were  so  pitilessly  evicted 
after  the  famine  of  1847!  [Applause.] 
This  great  reform,  as  you  see,  can  be 
achieved  without  shedding  a  drop  of 
blood,  without  violence,  without  break- 
ing any  law — English,  human,  or 
divine  (and  they  are  three  separate 
I  and  distinct  codes  over  here !) — and  by 
I  thus  accomplishing  your  object  you 
will  do  more  to  prove  to  the  world 
that  England  has  slandered  you  for 
generations  than  if  you  were  to  wade 
to  it  through  a  lough  of  blood  and  over 
a  causeway  of  corpses. 

[Mr.  Redpath  then  showed  the  value 
of  resolute  Parliamentary  action  illus- 
trated in  the  earnest  methods  of 
Mr.  Parnell  and  Mr.  Biggar  as  con- 
trasted with  the  mock-fight  tactics  of 
Mr.  Shaw  and  Mr.  Mitchell-Henry. 
"  Most  of  the  Home  Rule  Irish  Mem- 
bers," he  said,  "  are  mere  dress-parade 
soldiers — there  is  no  fight  in  them." 
This  part  of  the  speech  was  not  re- 
ported.] 

Do  I  tell  you  in  thus  speaking  to  aban- 
don your  aspirations  for  nationality  ? 
I  would  rather  that  my  tongue  should 
wither;  for  I  hope  to  live  long  enough 
to  see  Ireland  an  independent  republic. 
[Cheers.]    But  if  you  think  that  inde- 
pendence can  be  secured  by  the  sword 
only,  then — as  I  have  seen  a  little  war 
myself — I  advise  you   to  deliberate 
gravely  before  you  act,  and  to  remem- 
ber that  war  is  a  science  needing  vast 
supplies  and  drilled  soldiers,  experi- 
enced generals  and  a  complex  and  ex- 
pensive oi;ganization,  and  that  steam 
and  the  telegraph  have  annilrilated 
distance — that  Kerry  is  nearer  London 
to-day  for  military  purposes  than  Liv- 
'  erpool  was  in  the  days  of  the  illustrious 
I  Wolfe  Tone.    [Cheers.]    My  friends, 
I  it  is  impossible  for  Ireland  at  this  time 
I  to  successfully  fight  England.  The 
1  odds  are  too  great  against  her.  Strike 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


out  of  the  list  of  fighting  men  in  Ireland 
all  the  Orangemen,  all  the  landlords  and 
their  henchmen,  all  the  well-to-do 
farmers  and  the  vast  majority  of  the 
Eastern  and  Northern  tradesmen — 
the  loyalists,  the  pacific  and  the  indif- 
ferent— everybody  whom  love,  or  fear, 
or  trade,  or  religion  could  influence — 
and  England  and  Scotland,  which 
would  be  a  military  unit  against  you, 
would  have  a  terrible  advantage,  even 
if  it  were  to  be  a  hand-to-hand  fight. 
But  you  are  unarmed,  undi'illed,  and 
poor;  and  P^ngland  has  unequaled 
facilities  to  hire  men  and  to  impress 
men,  as  well  as  absolutely  illimitable 
resources  in  the  machinery  and  mate- 
rial of  war.  Father  John,  brave  as  he 
was,  and  skillful  as  he  was,  could  not 
repeat  his  career  to-day, — nor  could 
W olfe  Tone, — because  this  is  the  age 
of  the  steam  cannon  and  the  7?iiirailleuse, 
and  of  vast  disciphned  armies,  and, 
above  all,  of  the  steamer  and  the  loco- 
motive. On  Napoleon's  estimate  of 
the  difference  made  by  machinery  in 
the  fighting  capacity  of  nations,  you 
would  have  to  overcome  a  disparity  of 
eighteen  agaii:^st  one.  This  is  not  my 
dictum;  it  is  the  dictum  of  the  greatest 
soldier  of  modern  times. 

Be  patient !  Patience  is  not  cow- 
ardice. It  needs  the  highest  courage. 
Seven  hundred  years  of  tyranny  cannot 
be  overthrown  in  a  day  in  Ireland. 
Until  the  people  are  planted  firmly  on 
their  lands,  I  can  see  no  hope  of  a  suc- 
cessful miUtary  revolt  against  English 
misrule.  For  that  reason,  and  that 
reason  only,  if  I  were  an  Irishman,  I 


might  prepare  for  war,  but  I  would 
certainly  postpone  any  revolutionary 
efforts  until  the  men  on  v/hom  such  a 
movement  must  rely  for  success  could 
go  forth  to  do  battle  consoled  by  the 
thought  that,  if  they  died  for  their 
country  in  the  field,  they  did  not  leave 
their  families  in  the  power  of  petty 
landed  despots,  who  would  be  glad  to 
fling  them  out  into  the  road-side  to  die. 
[Cheers.]  All  great  men  and  all  great 
races  have  succeeded  by  obeying  the 
golden  rule  of  success — do  one  thing 
at  a  time. 

But,  I  beg  of  you,  don't  fight  among 
yourselves.  There  is  no  need  of  it, 
and  no  sense  in  it.  Land  Leaguer, 
Home  Ruler,  and  Nationalist,  each  in 
his  own  way  is  struggling  for  the  wel- 
fare of  Ireland,  and  each  of  them  can 
have  fight  enough  to  satisfy  even  an 
Irishman  [laughter]  by  striking  at  the 
landlords  and  the  British  Government. 
The  land  system  of  Ireland  is  the  key- 
stone of  the  house  of  tyranny.  Kick  it 
out,  and  then  I  hope  and  I  believe  that 
on  a  free  soil,  and  with  a  people  free, 
the  blood  of  Ireland's  myriads  of  politi- 
cal martyrs  will  quicken  and  blossom 
into  a  resplendent  Irish  nationality. 
[Cheers.] 

[''  Mr.  Redpath,"  said  the  report  of 
the  Freeman's  Journal^  "  spoke  rapidly 
for  an  hour  and  a  quarter,  and  his 
speech  was  most  enthusiastically  re- 
ceived by  all  present.  The  conclusion 
especially,  in  which  he  urged  unity  of 
action  between  the  three  parties,  many 
of  whom  were  present,  was  most 
warmly  applauded."] 


4 


50  HARVESTING  FOR  THE  LAND  LEAGUE. 


vn. 

HARVESTING  FOR  THE  LAND  LEAGUE. 

[Under  the  head  of  "An  Extraordinary  Scene,"  the  following  special  dispatch  appeared 
in  the  Freeman'' s  Journaly  a  few  days  after  the  report  of  the  foregoing  speech  :  ] 


{Special  Telegram  from  our  Correspondent.) 

Clare  Morris,  Tuesday  Xight. 

FOR  the  last  week  the  following 
placard  has  been  posted  in  Clare 
Morris  and  some  adjoining  parishes: 

Hold  the  harvest !  Last  spring  2,000 
men  collected  at  Ballin  taffy  to  sow 
the  Land  League  farms.  The  crops 
are  now  ripe,  and  again  the  same  men 
are  called  on  to  reap  them.  At  his 
post  then,  every  man  !  Come  without 
fear  and  show  your  pluck,  and  that 
you  are  determined  to  keep  your  crops. 
Bring  your  scythes  and  hooks,  and  let 
every  man  vs  ho  has  a  horse  and  cart 
bring  them  also  to  carry  away  in 
triumph  the  fruits  of  labor  free  of  rent 
and  taxes.  The  day  is  coming  when 
every  man's  crop  shall  be  free.  To  the 
front,  then,  on  next  Tuesday,  the  14th 
inst.  Men  of  Clare  Morris  and  Gallen ! 
Noble  women  and  brave  peasant  girls, 
come  you  also  and  help  to  bind  up 
the  first  sheaves  of  com  free  of  rent 
and  taxes  that  have  ever  been  reaped 
in  Ireland.  The  land  for  the  people  I 
The  crops  for  the  people  1  Hold  the 
harvest  I    (rod  save  Ireland  !" 

About  eleven  o'clock  this  morning  a 
brake,  in  which  were  seated  the  mem- 
bers of  the  Clare  Morris  brass  band, 
stopped  at  the  presbytery  for  the  Rev. 
James  Corbett,  C.  C,  and  then  at 
Ansborough  hotel  for  Mr.  Redpath, 
the  American  journalist,  and  Mr.  J.  P. 
Quinn,  the  Land  League  representative. 
The  brake  was  driven  through  the 
streets  of  the  town,  the  band  playing 
"  God  Save  Ireland."  A  large  number 
of  cars  followed,  and  as  the  cavalcade 
went  through  the  streets  toward  Ballin- 
taffy,  women,  men,  and  children 
rushed  to  the  doors  shouting,  "  God 


bless  you.  Father  Corbett  1 "  Ballin- 
taffy  is  four  miles  from  Clare  Morris. 
On  the  way  the  party  overtook  dozens 
of  carts  and  large  numbers  of  men  on 
foot  carrvins:  scvthes  and  sickles.  I 
arrived  at  Ballintaffy  about  noon. 
More  than  an  acre  of  the  Land 
League  oats,"  as  they  are  called  here, 
had  already  been  cut.  About  one  hun- 
dred men,  women,  and  young  children 
were  employed  cutting  and  binding  the 
oats.  The  arrival  of  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Corbett  was  received  with  loud  and 
long-continued  cheering  by  the  reapers 
and  binders.  Men  and  women  arrived 
until  there  were  five  or  six  hundred 
persons  present,  each  of  whom  worked. 
Women  apologized  for  the  absence  of 
their  husbands  by  saying  they  were  in 
England  "  earning  the  rint."  Men  and 
women  were  present  from  Clare  Morris 
and  the  surrounding  parishes,  includ- 
ing Kiltrinagh,  Bohola,  Balla,  Face- 
field,  Barnacarroll,  Lagatample,  Cloon- 
connor,  P'utagh,  Drumkeen,  Killeen, 
Ballyknave,  Facefield  Bries,  Castlegar, 
Irishtown,  Ballindine,  Crossboyne, 
Mayfield,  Augherv'illa,  Drimineen,  etc. 
Quite  a  delegation  of  ladies  from  Clare 
Morris,  Westport,  and  Balla,  elegantly 
attired,  were  present  to  witness  and  take 
part  in  the  work.  I  noticed  some  ladies 
dressed  in  the  highest  of  fashion  taking 
off  their  kid  gloves,  going  down  among 
the  barefooted  peasant  women,  and 
binding  the  sheaves. 

Mr.  Redpath  assisted  in  carrying 
the  sheaves  to  the  carts.  Five  or  six 
acres  of  oats  were  cut  and  carried  to  the 
carts,  which  conveyed  them  to  Clare 
Morris  in  a  few  hours. 

After  the  work  was  completed  a 
meeting  was  held. 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  RE  DEATH. 


51 


The  Rev.  James  Corbett  was  moved 
to  the  chair,  which  was  composed  of  a 
stook  of  oats. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Corbett  praised  the  | 
people  for  having  exhibited  such   a  1 
spirit  of  independence  in  coming  to  | 
the  defense  of  the  rights  of  their  own  I 
class.     He  explained  some  circum- 
stances connected  with  the  holdings, 
and  then  introduced  Mr.  James  Red- 
path,  who   was   received  with   loud  j 
cheers  for  "  the  Stars  and   Stripes,"  l 
"  The  land  of  the  free  and  the  home 
of  the  brave,"  etc. 

Mr.  Redpath   praised   the  patriot  ■ 
priest  who  had  brought  out  his  people 
last  spring  and  planted  these  oats  under 
the  very  shadow  of  British  bayonets —  1 
for  the  constabulary,  angry  and  armed,  j 
were  there  that  day.  Where  were  they  ! 
to-day  ?    Conquered  by  an  unarmed 
and  heroic  priest  and  people.  [Cheers.] 
This  should  teach  the  Irish  nation  a 
lesson — the  irresistible  force  of  moral 
courage  and  determination.   Mr.  Red- 
path  then  made  an  appeal  for  union  of 
action  and  harmony  among  Irishmen 
of  all  classes.     He  reviewed  briefly 
the  history  of  Ireland,  and  showed  that 
although  the  Irish  were  the  "fighting- 
est  "  race  on  this  planet,  England  had 
been  able  to  conquer  them  and  main- 
tain its  conquest  by  making  Irishmen 
fight  among  themselves.    Mr.  Redpath 
spoke  in  eulogistic  terms  of  the  noble 
conduct  of  the   "  barefooted  ladies  " 
who  had  shown  that,  whenever  they 
were  called  on  to  do  duty-work  for 
Ireland,  they  would  rally,  but  he  hoped 
they   would   never    do  "  duty-work, 
here"*  for  the  landlords  again.  Mr. 
Redpath  described  British  rule  in  Ire- 
land as  "  the  most  tyrannical  Govern-  | 
ment  on   the    face   of  the   earth."  | 
[Loud  cheers.]    Why,  England  could 


*"  Duty- work  "  is  a  relic  of  feudal  serf 
labor  still  enforced  in  the  West  of  Ireland. 

its  terms,  in  addition  to  exorbitant  rents, 
ilie  hapless  and  helpless  tenants  are  obliged  to 
viOxV  for  from  one  week  to  one  month  for 
^heir  landlord  every  year  without  wages,  and 

feed  themselves  while  working. 


not  endure  a  heptarchy,  the  rule  of 
seven  despots,  and  yet  she  insists  on 
putting  the  Irish  under  the  absolute 
control,  not  of  seven,  but  of  seven 
thousand  irresponsible  despots  called 
landlords !  He  contrasted  in  sarcastic 
terms  the  conduct  of  the  barefooted 
ladies  before  him,  who  cheerfully 
worked  for  their  country,  with  the 
conduct  of  the  Queen,  who  gave  only 
one  day's  wages  to  the  starving  poor 
of  Ireland.  Landlordism  in  Ireland 
must  die,  if  the  Irish  were  ever  to  be 
a  happy,  contented,  and  prosperous 
people.  [Cheers.]  Irish  landlordism 
had  better  tell  its  heirs  and  executors 
what  sized  coffin  it  wore ;  for  the 
horologe  of  time  had  given  warning 
that  its  hour  of  doom  had  come.  But 
Ireland's  liberation  must  come  from 
Irish  unity  and  courage,  and  not  from 
English  justice  or  patronage.  He  did 
not  join  in  the  eulogiums  of  Bright 
and  Forster  that  some  Irishmen  ut- 
tered. He  called  them  "  buck-shot 
Quakers,"  and  earnestly  urged  the 
tenantry  to  refuse  to  listen  to  pleas  for 
fair  rents  and  long  leases,  but  to  insist 
on  a  peasant  proprietary.  Half  a  loaf 
was  not  better  than  nothing  if  they 
could  get  the  whole  loaf — and  the  loaf 
was  theirs.  At  the  conclusion  of  Mr. 
Redpath's  speech  three  cheers  were 
given  for  him,  and  three  more  for  the 
American  republic. 

A  large  number  of  carts  were  em- 
ployed all  day  in  carrying  the  oats  to 
Clare  Morris.  WHien  the  work  was 
done  the  largest  brake,  containing  the 
band,  followed  by  a  long  string  of  out- 
side cars  and  a  number  of  carts  loaded 
with  oats,  moved  back  to  Clare  Morris. 
On  passing  the  residence  of  a  landlord, 
some  one  shouted  out :  "  Death  to 
landlordism !  "  and  Mr.  Redpath  re- 
quested the  band  to  play  a  funeral 
dirge.  The  band  struck  up  the  "  Dead 
March  in  Saul,"  amid  great  applause. 
On  the  scat  of  the  brake  was  a  presi- 
dent of  a  branch  of  the  Land  League, 
carrying  in  his  arms  a  sheaf  of  the  oats. 
Every  man  in  the  cars  wore  an  ear  of 
the  com  in  his  hat,  and  the  ladies  and 


52 


''BETWEEN  TWO  LORDS  SLAIN. 


children  were  similarly  decorated.  On 
arriving  at  the  outskirts  of  the  town  the 
band  struck  up  "  See,  the  conquering 
hero  comes,"  and  the   streets  were 


thickly  lined  with  men,  women,  and 
children,  who  cheered  for  the  Rev. 
Mr.  Corbett  and  the  Irish  National 
League. 


YIII. 


"BETWEEN  TWO  LORDS  SLAIN." 


[Writing  to  a  friend  in  America  from  Clonbur,  County  Galway,  on  Monday,  September  26, 
1880,  Mr.  Redpath  told  of  an  exceptional  experience  as  a  speaker  in  the  West  of  Ireland.] 


I MADE  a  speech  here  yesterday  that 
I  intended  to  be  my  last  speech  in 
Ireland.  I  was  never  in  a  position  that 
needed  so  much  tact  and  nerve.  My 
friend.  Father  Conway,  the  Catholic 
curate  here,  had  coaxed  me  to  promise 
to  make  a  speech  at  a  Land  Meeting 
to  be  held  yesterday.  I  was  wretched 
after  I  had  agreed  to  speak,  because  I 
knew  that  many  of  the  same  people 
would  be  here  who  heard  me  at  Lee- 
nane  and  Claremorris,  and  I  could  not 
think  of  any  speech  that  it  would  be 
proper  for  a  stranger  to  make,  and  I 
would  not  repeat  myself  As  I  was 
walking  up  and  down  the  lane  near 
the  church,  I  noticed  the  image  of  St. 
Patrick  and  that  gave  me  an  idea  for 
a  speech.  As  I  was  working  it  out  in 
my  mind,  a  citizen  of  the  place  joined 
me.  One  after  another,  seven  or  eight 
"  outside  cars "  passed  me  on  their 
way  to  the  constabulary  head-quarters. 
Each  jaunting-car  had  four  armed  con- 
stables on  it.  I  asked  why  they  were 
coming? 

"  Oh  ! "  said  my  companion,  "  don't 
you  know  the  Government  has  sent 
down  a  short-hand  writer  to  report  your 
speech  to-morrow,  and  these  constables 
are  here  to  protect  him  ?  " 

That  information  inspired  me.  As 
these  cars  reached  the  head  of  the  lane, 
a  gentleman  dressed  in  light  clothing 
stopped  each  of  them  and  spoke  to  the 
constables. 

"  Who  is  that  man  ?  "  I  asked. 

"  Lord  Montmorris." 


"  And  who  is  he  ?  " 
A  landlord  near  here,"  was  the 
answer. 

As  Father  Conway  drove  up, — he 
had  been  at  Ballinrobe, — I  looked  at 
my  watch.  It  was  a  quarter  before 
six. 

W"e  staid  'up  rather  late,  as  the 
curate  was  waiting  for  a  friend.  A  little 
after  ten  o'clock  a  parishioner  came  in 
and  announced  that  Lord  Montmorris 
had  been  murdered,  and  his  body  found 
on  the  road-side  about  a  mile  from 
Clonbur ! 

Next  morning,  —  yesterday, — thou- 
sands of  .  people  came  to  Clonbur  to 
attend  the  Land  Meeting.  I  mingled 
among  them,  but  heard  no  expressions 
of  sympathy  for  the  slain  lord.  The 
nearest  approach  to  pity  was  the  re- 
mark of  an  old  woman,  "  Sure,  he  wasn't 
worth  killing !  "  Lord  Montmorris 
died  unwept  as  he  had  lived  unloved — 
a  corrupt  magistrate  and  a  profligate 
man.  He  had  long  since  been  hated 
and  despised  by  all  classes.  Still,  I 
knew  how  this  murder  would  bd  re- 
garded in  England,  and  I  suggested 
that  the  Land  Meeting  should  be  post- 
poned. No  one  agreed  with  me  that 
it  would  be  wise  to  postpone  it.  So,  I 
must  speak  and  denounce  the  murder 
among  a  people  indifferent  to  it, 
and  advocate  social  excommunication 
after  I  had  been  told  that  this  sort  of 
advice  might  possibly  be  construed  as 
sedition — and  there  was  the  Govern- 
ment reporter  to  take  down  my  words ! 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


53 


The  platform  was  built  inside  the 
church-grounds,  and  against  the  walls 
of  the  church.  Right  opposite,  on  the 
other  side  of  the  lane,  were  the  high 
walls  that  inclosed  a  lawn  that  had 
once  been  Lord  I.eitrim's  estate. 
Imagine  my  position — ^behind  me,  two 
miles  away.  Lord  Montmorris,  slain;  at 
my  .back,  a  reporter,  who  came  as  a 
spy  and  informer ;  around  me  a  crowd 
of  people  who  had  hated  the  mur- 
dered lord,  and  some  of  whom  had 
just  cause  to  hate  him  ;  in  front  of  me, 
a  detachment  of  the  Irish  constabulary, 
and  behind  them  the  estate  of  Lord 
Leitrim !  I  stood  between  two  slain 
lords,  and  I  thought,  as  I  rose  to 
speak,  I  wonder  if  the  man  or  men 
who  killed  Lord  Montmorris  are  cheer- 
ing me  ?  Talk  about  inspiration  from 
audiences — here  was  the  regular  poteen 
of  oratory ! 

[This  report  is  reprinted  from  the 
Castlebar  Telegraph,  with  one  or  two 
"  seditious "  passages  supplied  from 
memory  within  a  few  days  after  the 
delivery  of  the  speech.] 

Rev.  Chairman,  Rev.  Fathers,  Ladies 
and  Gentlemen  : 

I  have  noticed  that  it  is  the  custom 
of  Irish  audiences,  in  a  good-natured 
way,  to  interrupt  a  speaker — sometimes 
by  asking  questions,  and  sometimes  by 
interjecting  remarks,  not  always  quite 
in  consonance  with  the  views  of  the 
speaker.  This  custom  has  a  tendency 
to  divert  the  current  of  a  speaker's 
thought,  especially'if  he  is  not  accus- 
tomed (as  I  am  not  accustomed)  to 
address  public  audiences.  I  ask  of  you 
the  favor  to  listen  to  me  in  silence. 
For  every  man  who  addresses  you 
should  weigh  well  his  words  this  day. 
Whatever  he  says,  or  may  refrain  from 
saying,  if  a  single  word  he  utters,  or 
even  if  his  silence,  can  be  distorted  by 
malice,  your  enemies  will  seize  on  it  to 
seek  to  injure  your  cause.  He  will  be 
charged  with  inciting  a  spirit  that  he 
reprobates,  and  approving  crimes  that 
he  abhors.  The  dark  deed  of  an  indi- 
vidual, or  of  individuals,  will  be  charged 
on  this  community,  and  whoever  is  re- 


garded as  your  friend  will  be  held 
responsible  for  offenses  of  which  you 
are  as  innocent  as  your  calumniators. 

On  the  other  side  of  that  wall  in 
front  of  us  lies  one  of  the  estates  of  the 
late  Lord  Leitrim,  who  was  slain  in 
Donegal.  Two  miles  behind  us  lies 
the  body  of  Lord  Montmorris,  who 
was  slain  last  night.  Around  us  are 
representatives  of  the  armed  constabu- 
lary by  whom  the  town  is  garrisoned. 
At  my  side  is  a  reporter,  paid  by  the 
Government  to  write  down  every  word 
we  utter  here.  It  is  a  time  to  be  brave, 
but  to  be  wise  as  well ;  to  proclaim  the 
truth,  but  to  give  no  weapons  to  your 
enemies. 

Let  me  congratulate  John  Bright 
that  at  last  I  see  a  peaceful  audience 
assembled  in  Ireland  to  discuss  their 
grievances  without  having  detachments 
of  constabulary,  with  loaded  muskets, 
among  them ;  that  the  time  has  come 
when  the  constabulary,  although  they 
are  here,  attend  your  meetings  as  pri- 
vate gentlemen.  [Applause.] 

It  was  time  that  these  outrages  on 
the  right  of  free  speech  should  cease, 
or  that  John  Bright  should  withdraw 
from  a  Government  that  practiced 
them,  or  that  Americans  should  blot 
out  the  name  of  that  man,  as  a  lost 
leader,  from  the  roll  of  Englishmen 
whom  they  have  been  taught  to  love. 

I  hope  when  next  I  visit  Ireland,  I 
shall  be  able  to  report  that  not  only 
have  the  constabulary  been  removed, 
but  that  John  Bright  no  longer  sullies 
his  once  noble  record  by  consenting  to 
belong  to  a  Government  that  still  em- 
ploys stenographic  spies  ! 

The  tragic  death  of  the  unhappy 
lord  who  lies  dead  to-day  will  be 
charged  by  your  enemies  to  the  land 
agitation.  I  never  heard  the  name  of 
the  dead  lord  until  a  day  or  two  ago, 
and  I  had  already  forgotten  it  when 
the  dreadful  crime  of  last  night  brought 
it  to  every  man's  lips.  But  this  I  do 
know — that  wherever  in  Ireland  the 
Land  League  is  strong,  there  not  one 
drop  of  the  blood  of  sheep  or  cattle 
or  of  man  has  been  shed.    Here,  as 


54 


''BETWEEN  TWO  LORDS  SLAIXr 


you  all  know,  the  Land  League  was 
weak,  and  you  know  how  the  landlords 
in  this  neighborhood  tried  to  suppress 
it. 

Lord  Montmorris  dead  is  a  stronger 
ally  of  Irish  landlordism  than  Lord 
Montmorris  living.  The  man  or  the 
men  who  slew  him  have  not  injured 
Irish  landlordism.  They  have  injured 
the  cause  of  the  Irish  tenantry — for 
although  you  are  innocent,  the  land- 
lords have  still  the  ear  of  Europe  and 
your  defense  will  not  be  heard  there. 
O'Connell  said  that  whoever  commits  a 
crime  strengthens  the  enemy.  The 
crimes  of  the  Irish  landlords  have 
strengthened  your  cause  in  America. 
Europe  is  beginning  to  listen  to  the 
story  of  your  wrongs,  and,  if  you  avoid 
crimes  and  sternly  repress  them,  the 
verdict  of  Christendom  will  soon  be 
rendered  in  your  favor.  Every  crime 
delays  the  day  of  justice  to  Ireland. 
Give  violence  no  countenance,  but  re- 
gard every  criminal  as  your  enemy. 

But  do  not  submit  in  silence  to  slan- 
ders! Give  blow  for  blow,  and  spare 
no  man  who  libels  you !  Let  me  set 
you  an  example!  In  the  last  num- 
ber of  the  Nineteenth  Ce?iturj,  James 
Anthony  Froude,  the  most  malig- 
nant enemy  of  the  Irish  race,  charac- 
terizes the  assassination  of  Lord 
Leitrim  as  an  agrarian  outrage,  and 
then  dares,  I  am  told,  to  call  the  noble 
patriots  who  surround  Mr.  Parnell 
"  the  patrons  of  anarchy  and  defenders 
of  assassination."  I  am  talking  now, 
am  I  not,  to  hundreds  of  men  and  wo- 
men who  knew  Lord  Leitrim  and  were 
his  tenants  ?  [Shouts  of  "  Yes  I  "  from 
the  audience.]  Did  Lord  Leitrim  not 
bear  the  reputation  of  being  one  of  the 
vilest  lepers  in  social  life  ?  [Shouts  of 
"  Yes ! " j  Don't  his  tenants  say  that  he 
flung  a  score  at  least  of  young  girls  into 
the  brothels  of  Liverpool  and  New  York? 
["Yes I"]  Was  not  that  his  reputa- 
tion ?  ["  Yes !  "]  Is  it  not  believed 
by  every  one  that  he  was  killed  on  ac- 
count of  his  personal  offenses  ?  ["Yes ! "] 
Yes ;  these  facts  are  as  well  known  in 
Galway  and  Donegal  as  the  similar 


offenses  of  Nero  and  of  Henry  the 
Eighth.  Yet  Froude  dares  to  charge 
the  Irish  political  leaders  with  being 
"  patrons  of  assassination,"  because  this 
leprous  Lord  Leitrim  was  slain.  I 
denounce  James  Anthony  Froude  be- 
fore Christendom  as  the  patron  of  seduc- 
tion and  the  defender  of  debauchery. 
[Loud  cheers.]  It  is  time  to  talk 
plainly,  and  to  brand  the  slanderers  of 
your  race  as  they  deserve.  [Cheers.] 
I  dare  James  Anthony  Froude  to  say 
that  he  would  have  introduced  his  wife 
or  daughter  to  Lord  Leitrim.  [Cheers.] 
[Turning  to  the  Government  reporter  :J 
Has  John  Bright's  spy  got  that  down  ? 
[Cheers  from  the  audience.] 

I  am  not  defending  the  slayer  of 
Lord  Leitrim  :  I  am  only  vindicating 
the  Irish  character.  Assassination 
helps  no  good  cause.  Napoleon  said 
that  in  war  a  blunder  is  worse  than  a 
crime ;  and  assassination  is  not  only  a 
crime,  but  a  blunder.  I  will  tell  you 
how  to  obtain  your  just  rights  without 
a  crime,  without  shedding  one  drop  of 
blood,  without  doing  anything  that  the 
Queen  of  England  does  not  do,  that 
the  aristocracy  of  England  have  not 
done  for  generations,  that  the  Irish 
landlords  do  not  countenance  at  this 
hour,  and  that  the  Catholic  Church  has 
not  sanctioned  and  practiced  for  cent- 
uries. I  will  not  tell  you  to  do  any- 
thing in  conflict  with  British  laws  and 
the  British  Constitution.  Now,  don't 
frown  when  I  say  British  Constitution! 
My  fnends,  it  is  true  of  the  British  Con- 
stitution what  the  old  lady  said  of  the 
doctrine  of  total  depravity :  "  It's  a 
very  good  thing  if  it's  only  lived  up 
to!"  [Laughter.]  The  trouble  in  Ire- 
land has  been  that  only  the  landlords 
have  been  able  to  take  advantage  of 
the  British  Constitution  ! 

Why  have  the  landlords  so  much 
greater  power  in  Ireland  then  in  any 
other  civiHzed  country  ?  You  know, 
but  the  world  does  not  know,  and, 
therefore,  it  is  so  hard  for  foreign  na- 
tions to  understand  your  wrongs.  The 
despotic  power  of  the  Irish  landlords 
comes  from  the  fact  that  there  is  no 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


55 


diversity  of  industry  in  Ireland — that 
in  this  western  country  every  one  must 
live  by  the  soil,  or  die.  Why  are  there 
no  manufactures  here  ?  Because  Eng- 
land destroyed  the  woolen  manu- 
factures in  William  of  Orange's 
time,  and  then  prohibited  the  estab- 
lishment of  other  industries  for  long 
generations.  She  has  given  the  soil 
of  Ireland  to  aliens  ;  her  laws  have 
imperiously  jjrevented  the  transfer  of 
the  soil ;  and  she  has  thus  made  it 
impossible  to  develop  the  mineral  and 
even  the  fishing  resources  of  the  West. 
Her  evil  eye  has  blighted  every  in- 
dustry, excepting  agriculture  only, 
and  that  industry  she  suffers  to  exist  at 
the  price  of  the  serfdom  of  the  tillers 
of  the  soil.  She  makes  the  landlord 
the  absolute  master  of  the  lives  and 
fortunes  of  her  people.  He  can  drive 
them  into  the  road-side,  or  into  the 
poor-house,  or  into  exile,  or  into  the 
grave ;  leaving  the  land  a  desert,  or  a 
game-cover, or  a  grazing  farm;  destroy- 
ing every  village  trade,  and  every  call- 
ing, and  every  profession  at  his  sover- 
eign will  and  pleasure,  and  then  blas- 
pheming the^  God  v/ho  made  this 
earth  for  the  people  thereof  by  calling 
this  heartless,  this  heathen  system,  the 
enforcement  of  the  rights  of  property.' 
The  landlord  confiscates  not  the 
wages  of  toil  only, -but  the  visible  re- 
sults of  it ;  and  this  is  not  defended 
by  English  opinion  only,  but  enforced 
by  English  law.  Whoever  dares  to 
deny  the  right  of  any  man  to  drive  an 
innocent  people  into  exile  is  called 
a  communist  by  these  brawling  par- 
asites of  the  greatest  communists  on 
earth  ! 

To  destroy  the  power  of  the  land- 
lord you  must  refuse  to  help  him  in 
his  cruel  work  of  eviction  and  confis- 
cation. If  a  landlord  evicts  a  poor 
tenant,  do  not  take  that  farm,  nor 
work  on  it  for  any  one ;  you  violate  no 
law  in  refusing  to  take  or  to  labor  on 
such  a  farm,  but  you  do  rivet  the 
chains  of  your  people  if  you  do  not 
refuse  to  take  it,  or  do  not  refuse  to 
work  on  it.    [To  the  reporter:]  Has 


John  Bright's  spy  got  that  down  ? 
[Laughter.] 

But  if  a  man  docs  take  a  farm  from 
which  a  poor  tenant  has  been  evicted, 
I  conjure  you  to  do  him  no  bodily 
harm.  [To  the  reporter:]  Get  ready, 
John  Bright's  spy  !  Act  toward  him 
as  the  Queen  of  England  would  act  to 
you  if  she  lived  in  Clonbur!  Act 
toward  his  wife  as  the  Queen  of  Eng- 
land would  act  toward  your  good  wife 
if  she  lived  in  Clonbur !  Act  toward 
his  children  as  the  Queen  of  England 
would  act  toward  your  children  !  The 
Queen  of  England  would  not  speak  to 
you,  she  would  not  speak  to  your 
wife,  she  would  not  speak  to  your 
children.  She  would  not  regard  you, 
your  wife,  nor  your  children  as  her 
equals.  Now,  imitate  the  Queen  of 
England,  and  don't  speak  to  a  land- 
grabber,  nor  to  a  land-grabber's  wife, 
nor  to  a  land-grabber's  children. 
[Cheers.]  They  are  not  your  equals! 
Do  as  the  Queen  of  England  does, 
and  you  will  violate  no  law  of  England! 
[To  the  reporter:]  Has  John  Bright's 
spy  got  that  down  ?  [Laughter.]  Oh! 
my  friends,  be  loyal !  [Laughter.] 

If  a  land-grabber  comes  to  town, 
and  wants  to  sell  anything,  don't  do 
him  any  bodily  harm ;  only  act  as  the 
rich  landlords  in  Mayo  and  Galway 
have  acted  toward  my  friend  from 
Clare  Morris  here  [pointing  to  Mr. 
Gordon,  Who  stood  on  the  platform]. 
You  all  know  that  Mr.  Gordon  is  the 
best  boot-maker  in  Connaughi  [cries 
of  "  Sure  we  do !"  "  He  is,  indeed"  ,  and 
that  he  once  employed  about  a  dozen 
workmen.  He  made  all  the  boots  and 
shoes  for  the  gentry  in  this  part  of  the 
country.  Just  as  soon  as  he  addressed 
a  Land  League  meeting,  his  custom 
fell  off,  the  landlords  wouldn't  buy 
shoes  from  him,  and  my  friend  Gordon 
was  almost  ruined.  Now,  imitate  these 
landlords.  If  you  see  a  land-grabber 
going  to  a  shop  to  buy  bread,  or  cloth- 
ing, or  even  whisky,  go  you  to  the 
shop-keeper  at  once;  don't  threaten 
him;  it  is  illegal  to  threaten  any  one, 
you  know;  just  say  to  him  that  undei 


56 


''BETWEEN  TWO  LORDS  SLAIN: 


British  law  he  has  the  undoubted  right, 
that  you  wont  dispute,  to  sell  his 
goods  to  any  one, — don't  forget  to  say 
all  that, — ^but  that  there  is  no  British 
law  to  compel  you  to  buy  another 
penny's  worth  from  him,  and  that  you 
will  never  again  do  it  as  long  as  you 
live,  if  he  sells  anytfting  to  a  land-grab- 
ber. The  landlords  wont  buy  their 
boots  from  Mr.  Gordon  because  he  is 
your  friend ;  now,  don't  you  buy  your 
goods  from  any  shop-keeper  who  is 
their  friend.  [Cheers.]  [To  the  re- 
porter :j  Has  John  Bright's  spy  got 
that  down  ? 

Don't  buy  anything  from  a  land- 
grabber.  This  policy  is  truly  loyal 
and  conservative  British  policy.  The 
British  laws  make  it  almost  impossible 
for  you  to  buy  a  lot  of  ground  from  a 
landlord — so  don't  buy  anything  from 
his  friends  until  they  repeal  their  laws. 
Imitate  the  landlords !  [To  the  re- 
porter:] Has  John  Bright's  spy  got 
that  down  ?  [Laughter.] 

If  the  land-grabber  sends  his  children 
to  school,  don't  drive  them  away.  They 
have  the  right  to  go  there.  Act  as  the 
Queen  of  England  would  act  if  your 
children  forced  their  way  to  the  same 
school  with  her  children.  Take  your 
children  away.  [Applause.]  You  have 
a  right  to  do  so,  and  if  you  did  so  it 
would  soon  cause  some  of  the  teach- 
ers who  have  been  muzzled  by  the 
landlords  to  become  advocates  of  your 
rights.  [Cheers.]  [To  the  reporter  :] 
Has  John  Bright's  spy  got  that  down  ? 
^Laughter.] 

If  the  land-grabber  goes  to  the  Mass, 
don't  drive  him  away.  One  by  one, 
quietly  and  decently,  without  disturb- 
ing the  services,  go  out  pf  the  church, 
and  leave  him  and  his  family  alone  with 
the  priest.  They  need  praying  for. 
[Laughter.]  If  a  noisy  and  drunken 
man  entered  the  church,  the  priest 
would  tell  you  to  withdraw,  so  that 
there  might  be  no  disturbance  in  the 
chapel.  Act  in  the  same  way  when 
the  land-grabber  enters  it— for  he  is 
worse  than  a  drunkard  and  a  brawler. 

For  centuries  the  royal  families  and 


the  aristocracies  of  Europe  and  the 
landed  gentry  of  Ireland  have  socially 
excommunicated — they  call  it  os- 
tracized— whole  classes  and  profes- 
sions, and  even  races.  Follow  their 
example,  not  in  the  interests  of  social 
pride,  but  in  the  interests  of  sacred 
principle — and  they  will  find  that  this 
sword  is  two-edged,  and  that  they  have 
no  longer  a  monopoly  of  the  hilt! 
[Cheers.]  Surely,  my  friends,  if  kings 
can  do  no  wrong,  and  if  aristocracies 
are  the  nobility,  and  if  the  gentry  are  in 
fact,  as  well  as  pretense,  a  superior 
class — you  would  not  only  violate  no 
law,  but  you  would  be  entitled  to  great 
praise  for  imitating  their  illustrious  ex- 
ample. [Cheers.]  [To  the  reporter:] 
Has  John  Bright's  spy  got  that  down  ? 
[Laughter.] 

This  is  no  new  policy.  I  am  advo- 
cating only  a  new  application  of  an 
ancient  policy.  Once  Europe  was  a 
vast  camp  of  armed  men.  And  yet  we 
read  that  the  haughtiest  emperor  of 
Europe  was  once  forced  to  kneel  in 
the  snow,  a  suppliant,  for  three  days 
and  nights  at  the  door  of  a  priest  who 
had  not  an  armed  soldier  to  obey  his 
orders.  What  power  brought  the  ar- 
mored prince  to  the  feet  of  the  unarmed 
•  Pope  ?  It  was  the  terrible  weapon  of 
religious  excommunication.  That  weap- 
on you  cannot  wield  in  defense  of  your 
rights  ;  but  the  next  keenest  weapon — 
the  power  of  social  excommunication 
— is  yours,  and  no  law  of  the  state  nor 
of  the  church  forbids  you  to  draw  it. 
[To  the  reporter:]  Has  John  Bright's 
spy  got  that  down  ? 

[Pointing  to  the  statue  of  St.  Patrick 
over  the  church  door,  Mr.  Redpath 
continued :] 

Since  the  sandals  of  St.  Patrick  first 
pressed  the  soil  of  pagan  Ireland — since 
he  planted  here,  never  more  to  be  over- 
thrown, the  radiant  banner  of  the 
Christian  faith,  there,  never  yet  has 
sprung  from  the  illumined  heart  of  any 
Irish  patriot  a  project  so  worthy  of  that 
flag  and  that  faith  as  the  movement 
that  the  Land  League  is  now  sending 
forth  its  heralds  to  summon  you  to  joia 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


57 


Its  creed  is  pure ;  its  ways  are  wise ;  ' 
its  aim  is  divine.    It  is  the  latest  and  ! 
the  ripest  fruit  of  the  sacred  seeds  that 
St.  Patrick  sowed.  [Applause.] 

The  saints  and  heroes  of  a  century 
that  has  been  dead  for  centuries  de- 
voutly prayed  and  bravely  fought  for 
the  recovery  of  the  Holy  Sepulcher  and 
the  rescue  of  the  Holy  Land  from  the 
"  infidel  Saracens."  You  are  called  to 
a  kindred  crusade — to  rescue  the  holy 
land  of  Ireland  from  the  infidel  Sara- 
cens of  the  nineteenth  centur}- — the 
Irish  landlords  !  Never  has  "  The  Isle 
of  Saints "  given  birth  to  a  man  so 
saintly  that  his  white  robes  would  have 
been  sullied  by  figliting  the  battles 
of  this  new  crusade.  Ah,  no  I  they 
would  have  shone  with  a  more  lu- 
minous purity  thereby.  [Cheers  and 
applause.] 

And  in  this  holy  land  there  is  a  prize 
more  precious  than  even  that  empty 
sepulcher,  forever  sacred,  in  which  once 
lay  buried  the  Holy  Body.  You  know 
Who  it  was  Who  said  that  whoso  feeds 
the  hungry,  and  clothes  the  naked,  and 
breaks  the  chains  of  the  captive,  gives 
bread  to,  and  raiment,  and  liberates, 
not  the  earthly  disciple  needy,  but  the 
Heavenlv  Master  in  want.  This  sub- 
lime  and  sacred  utterance  consecrates 
and  sanctifies  the  West  of  Ireland — 
this  old  home  of  wrinkled  sorrow — as 
the  Holy  Land  of  our  day,  the  Holy 
Land  in  which,  ragged  and  hungry,  and 
at  die  mercy  of  men  without  mercy, 
the  living  Lord  Himself  inhabits  every* 
wretched  hovel  in  these  sterile  hill- 
foots  and  these  stony  mountain-slopes. 
[Loud  cheers.] 

It  is  a  heroic  Christian  crusade — 
this  bloodless  warfare  that  you  are 
waging — for  the  recovery  of  the  holy 
land  of  Ireland  for  the  people  of  Ire- 
land. 

The  Saracens  were  called  robbers 
because  they  held  a  Holy  Land  by 
virtue  of  a  military  conquest.  The 
Saracens  were  called  infidels  because 
they  did  not  believe  in  the  truths  of 
the  Christian  religion.  For  the  same 
reasons,  and  by  the  same  token,  are 


I  not  the  great  landlords  of  the  West  of 
!  Ireland  the  infidel  Saracens  of  our  day  ? 
You  can  tell  a  man's  real  religion  in 
one  way  only — not  by  listening  to  what 
he  says,  but  by  looking  at  what  he 
does.  By  a  cuttle-fish  ihetoric  a  man 
may  hide  the  truth,  but  his  acts  will 
betray  him.  [C^ieers.] 

What  is  the  real  religion  of  the  great 
landlords  of  the  West  of  Ireland  ? 
Translated  into  words — not  by  their 
lips,  but  by  their  deeds — the  religion  of 
these  landlords  is  the  most  purely 
pagan  religion  of  any  age  or  of  any 
race  on  this  planet  to-day.  [Loud 
applause.] 

I  shall  notsully  my  lips  by  repeating 
every  article  of  the  landlord's  creed, 
but  1  shall  quote  two  or  three  of  the 
more  fundamental  dogmas  of  it. 

The  first  article  of  the  landlord's 
creed  is  this:  "  I  believe  that  the 
Creator  intended  that  the  land  of  a 
country  should  be  owned,  not  by  the 
native  inhabitants  of  the  countr}-,  but 
by  any  accidental  conqueror  of  the 
countr}-,  and  that  it  should  be  di\'ided, 
not  even  among  the  soldiers  who  made 
that  confiscation  possible,  but  exclu- 
sively among  a  few  favorite  officers 
who  strengthened  and  extended  the 
power  of  a  foreign  king,  or  among  the 
parasites  of  a  regal  court,  who  served 
his  selfish  purposes,  or  flattered  his 
vanity,  or  yielded  to  his  lust."  On 
these  two  dead  branches  of  a  upas- 
tree  hang  most  of  the  titles  of  the 
great  landed  prourietors  of  Ireland 
to-day. 

The  second  article  of  the  landlord's 
creed  is  like  unto  the  first  article.  It 
reads  :  "  I  believe  that  the  land  of  Ire- 
land and  the  people  of  Ireland  were 
created  for  the  sole  purpose  of  admin- 
istering to  the  comfort  and  conven- 
ience of  the  Irish  landlords."  [Loud 
applause.]  You  all  know,  men  of 
Galway,  with  how  remorseless  a  thor- 
oughness the  great  landlords  of  the 
West  of  Ireland  have  enforced  this 
article  of  their  heathen  creed.  Thou- 
sands of  schools,  and  churches,  and 
villages  in  tlie  West  of  Ireland ;  tens 


''BETWEEN  TWO  LORDS  SLAIN. 


of  thousands  of  the  cabins  of  the 
toilers  of  the  soil  and  of  the  sea ;  and 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  laborers,  and 
mechanics,  and  artisans,  and  teachers, 
and  scholars,  and  priests — by  indi\  id- 
uals,  and  by  districts — have  been 
swept  away  as  if  a  pestilence  had 
passed  over  them,  throughout  all  this 
Land  of  Sighs,  by  these  hereditary 
"  Huns  and  Vandals,"  who  use  not 
the  flaming  sword  of  a  "  scourge  of 
God,"  but  the  civil  decree  of  the  proc- 
ess-server —  Huns  who  hide  their 
cowardly  heads  in  foreign  gambling 
hells;  Vandals  who  hire  a  native 
constabulaiy  to  destroy  the  homes 
of  the  people  of  Ireland.  [Loud 
cheers.] 

The  third  article  of  the  landlord's 
creed  is  that  the  Irish  family  has  no 
rights  that  the  Irish  gamekeeper  is 
bound  to  respect ;  that  whenever  the 
little  holding  of  the  farmer,  by  his 
own  toil,  or  by  the  toil  of  his  fore- 
fathers, reclaimed  from  barrenness,  is 
necessary  for  the  welfare  of  his  hares 
and  rabbits  and  grouse,  the  fathers, 
and  mothers,  and  little  ones  must  be 
driven  out  that  the  ground  game  and 
wild  fowl  may  fatten.  [Applause.] 
Every  one  of  you  can  testify 
that  the  tourist  traveling  from  the 
sea  m  any  direction  in  this  county  must 
pass  through  a  wild  and  deserted 
country,  desolated  not  by  conquerors 
in  the  interest  of  their  race,  but  by 
landlords  in  the  interest  of  their 
rabbits. 

Americans  regard  their  Government 
as  an  organization  for  the  protection 
of  the  rights  of  men.  The  Irish  land- 
lords regard  the  British  Government 
as  an  institution,  not  for  the  protection 
of  human  rights,  but  for  the  more  per- 
fect conservation  of  feudal  preroga- 
tives—  prerogatives  everywhere,  else- 
where, even  in  England,  either  so 
tempered  by  usage  that  they  have  lost 
their  ancient  power  to  oppress,  or 
abohshed  by  law,  or  abrogated  by 
custom  or  contempt. 

The  people  of  England  and  Scot- 
land are  governed  by  the  laws  of  Eng- 


land. If  the  people  of  Ireland  were 
governed  by  the  laws  of  England,  then 
their  grievances  might  be  justly,  how- 
ever ungenerously,  classified  as  senti- 
mental grievances. 

But  the  West  of  Ireland  is  not  gov- 
erned by  the  people  nor  by  the  laws 
of  England,  excepting  as  they  are 
auxiliaries  to  the  despotic  government 
of  the  landlords.  The  people  of 
England  would  not  endure  the  wrongs 
you  suffer  from  the  tyranny  of  the 
landlords;  nor,  I  believe,  would  they 
permit  you  to  endure  them  if  they 
knew  the  true  story  of  your  wrongs. 
But,  breathing  the  moral  malaria  of 
London  social  life,  that  so  soon  poi- 
sons even  Irish  Parliamentar}^  patriots, 
the  leaders  of  the  British  parties  and 
the  British  press — and  especially  the 
self-named  "  Liberal"  journals — papers 
like  the  Daily  News,  for  example,  and 
the  London  Times,  edited  by  intellect- 
ual eunuchs  for  intellectual  serfs — cne 
and  all  persistently  refuse  to  report  the 
whole  truth  about  Ireland,  or  to  listen 
with  patience  to  her  story. 

And  yet,  there  is  no  more  important 
question  for  England  than  the  Irish 
question,  whether  it  is  regarded  from  a 
national  or  an  international  point  of 
view.  The  Irish  landlords  have  made 
a  tool  of  the  British  Government  and 
a  fool  of  the  British  people  for  genera- 
tions. When  I  go  back  to  America,  I 
shall  say,  and  I  shall  prove  by  exam- 
ples— giving  names  and  dates,  and  fig- 
ures and  estates — that  there  is  no  par- 
allel to  the  oppression  that  the  Irish 
peasantry  endure  in  all  Europe  to-day, 
excepting  in  the  Christian  provinces  of 
Turkey,  where  the  taxes  are  farmed 
out  to  Mohammedans.  [Loud  cheers.] 
These  landlords  have  escaped  exposure 
before  Christendom,  because  by  their 
law  of  libel  they  can  ruin  any  editor 
who  tells  of  their  cmelties.  [Applause. ) 
Standing  at  my  side  is  a  Mayo  editor 
who  received  a  threatening  letter  from 
the  great  landlord  in  this  parish,  warn- 
ing him  of  the  consequences  if  he  did 
not  publish  a  paragraph  that  the  state- 
ments of  your  honored  and  heroic 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  RED  PATH.  59 


curate  were  false.*  That  letter  was  a 
legal  letter,  written  in  legal  terms  ;  not 
in  a  disguised  hand,  but  by  a  solicitor. 
The  laws  of  England  protect  Lord 
Ardilaun  in  sending  it.  But  the  law 
of  English  libel  does  not  run  in  Amer- 
ica, and  my  Lord  Double  X  will  find 
that  journalists  are  an  international  fra- 
ternity, and  will  stand  by  each  other 
against  any  invader  of  their  rights. 
[Cheers.] 

What  would  England  have  said  if 
three  millions  of  Christians  had  been 
expelled  from  Turkey,  or  starved  into 
the  grave,  for  no  offense  except  that 
for  a  single  famine  year  they  could  not 
pay  extortionate  taxation  ?  England 
would  have  flung  the  Sultan  and  his 
hosts  out  of  Europe  headlong  into 
Asia.  But  the  Irish  landlords  have 
driven  three  millions  of  Irish  Christians 
into  their  graves  and  from  native 
country,  and  England  has  looked  on 
and  helped  them,  and  sternly  punished 
every  effort  of  the  people  to  resist  this 
expulsion.  [Cheers.]  For  three  cent- 
uries, the  rule  of  the  landlord  has  been 
one  long  record  of  ruin  and  disaster ; 
and  yet  to-day,  as  in  the  days  of  Crom- 
well, the  only  remedy  of  the  lords  of 
the  soil  is — exile  or  exterminate  the 
Irish !  Once  their  cry  was,  "  To  hell 
or  Connaught !  "  Now  it  is,  "  To  the 
poor-house  or  America  !  " 

Do  the  British  statesmen  never  pause 
to  ask  themselves  whether,  in  continu- 
ing to  be  the  lackeys  and  executioners 
of  the  Irish  landlords — whether,  in 
driving  away  these  sore-hearted  Irish 


*  The  editor  was  Mr.  James  Daley,  of  the 
Castlebar  Telegraph,  who — Uke  Mr.  Gordon, 
previously  referred  to — is  now  [May  i,  1881] 
in  jail,  without  trial  or  accusation,  at  the  in- 
stance of  the  recreant  Quakers,  Mr.  Secretary 
Forster  and  Mr.  John  Bright,  who  act  as  the 
pious  figure-heads  for  this  infamous  suppres- 
sion of  free  speech  and  a  free  press  in  Ireland. 
The  Lord  Ardilaun  is  Sir  Arthur  Guiness, 
whose  family  was  "  ennobled  "  by  Beaconsfield. 
The  Guinesses  have  always  been  partisans  and 
parasites  of  English  tyranny  in  Ireland  ;  they 
have  grown  rich — and  "noble" — by  selling 
Dublin  porter,  and  thereby  debauching  five 
generations  of  I/ishmen. 


exiles — they  may  not  be  sowing  the 
winds  that  will  ripen  into  a  hurricane 
of  hatred  against  England  ?  Where 
do  these  peasants  go,  who  have  been 
expelled  to  give  place  to  pheasants  ? 
I  will  tell  them.  They  go  to  a  land 
that  has  not  one  cause  to  love  the  Brit- 
ish Government,  and  many  reasons  to 
hate  it.  Every  Irish  exile  becomes  a 
missionary  of  hate,  to  quicken,  to  keep 
alive,  and  to  fan  every  spark  of  animos- 
ity against  England.  .[Cheers.]  There 
are  already  in  America,  at  the  lowest 
computation,  sixteen  millions  of  citizens 
of  Irish  birth  and  Irish  descent.  Their 
numbers  and  their  influence  are  daily 
increasing.  If  there  vs  any  man  in 
America  of  Irish  descent  v/ho  does  not 
hate  the  British  Government — barring 
here  and  there  a  solitary  Orangeman — 
I  never  met  that  man,  nor  ever  heard 
of  him. 

How  is  it  Avith  the  native  Americans  ? 
The  Americans  have  a  kindly  regard  for 
the  English  people ;  but.  North  and 
South,  they  have  no  good-will  to  the 
British  Government.  American  flun- 
keys in  England  often  fawn  on  English 
society,  and  our  embassadors,  as  in 
duty  bound,  prophesy  smooth  things. 
Do  you  know  why  we  send  poets  to 
England  ?  Because  poets  are  of  imagi- 
nation all  compact ;  and  when  an 
American  talks  in  England  of  Ameri- 
can friendship  for  the  British  Govern- 
ment, he  needs  must  depend  wholly 
for  his  facts  on  his  imagination.  [Ap- 
plause.] But  Bntish  statesmen  should 
know  the  truth ;  and,  however  distaste- 
ful the  truth  may  be,  it  is  a  fact  that 
the  leaders  of  the  South  hate  the  Brit- 
ish Government,  because  they  believe 
that  they  would  have  succeeded  if 
England  had  recognized  their  Con- 
federacy, and  that  the  people  of  the 
N  orth  have  neither  forgotten  nor  for- 
given the  destruction  of  our  commerce 
and  the  hostile  spirit  of  British  states- 
men and  the  British  press  during  our 
long  years  of  national  agony.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

Is  it  wise  to  drive  missionaries  of 
hatred  by  the  millions  to  America  ? 


6o 


''BETWEEN  TWO  LORDS  SLAINr 


Would  it  not  be  better,  looking  to  the 
long  future,  to  abolish  the  system  that 
furnishes  fresh  fuel  to  such  a  smolder- 
ing fire  ? 

But  what  care  the  Irish  landlords  ? 
What  care  they  for  an  American 
alliance  ?  They  must  keep  their  rab- 
bits and  get  their  rents,  even  should 
races  perish  or  empires  grapple  in  the 
strife. 

The  creed  of  the  landlord  is  pagan- 
ism.   The  fruit  of  his  rule  is  serfdom. 

Don't  be  afraid  of  hard  names. 
These  pagans  call  you  communists, 
because  you  demand  peasant  proprie- 
tar}-.  Why,  all  the  great  minds  of 
modern  political  science  have  advo- 
cated the  institution  of  peasant  pro- 
prietary; and,  what  is  better  even  than 
their  approval,  the  example  of  a  pros- 
perity unparalleled  before,  wherever 
peasant  proprietary  has  been  estab- 
lished, is  the  conclusive  and  irrefutable 
answer  to  these  brawlmg  inanities. 
What  was  statesmanship  with  Harden- 
burg  and  Stein  in  Germany  cannot  be 
communism  with  Pamell  and  Davitt 
in  Connaught.  [Cheers.] 

Who  opposes  the  landlords  ?  The 
Land  League.  [Cheers  for  the  Land 
League.] 

What  is  its  creed  ?  The  Land 
League  teaches  that  God  endowed  all 
men  with  equal  rights  to  the  soil ;  that 
the  land  of  a  country  is  the  property 
of  the  whole  people  of  the  country, 
which  they  alone  can  alienate,  and 
then  only  in  perpetual  trust,  always 
subject  to  such  laws  as  shall  promote, 
not  the  selfish  interests  of  a  class, 
but  the  general  prosperity  :  that  the 
system  that  breeds,  and  for  centuries  has 
bred,  hunger  in  hovels,  wretchedness 
in  rags,  indigence  and  ignorance — 
empty  stomachs  and  empty  heads — to 
the  end  that  rich  brewers  may  hunt 
over  the  sites  of  ancestral  homesteads, 
and  rich  brokers  *  may  mock  Heaven 
by  attempting  to  revive  feudalism  in 


*  Many  of  Mr.  Mitchell-Henry's  tenants 
were  at  this  meeting. 


the  nmeteenth  century — that  pheasants 
■  may  fatten  and  peasants  grow  gaunt  — 
I  that  the  existing  system  of  feudal  land 
;  tenure  in  the  West  of  Ireland  is  in  its 
origin  immoral,  despotic  in  its  govem- 
I  ment,  and  by  its  influence  destructive 
j  alike  of  material  prosperity  and  intel- 
1  lectual  development — and  that,  there- 
fore, having   being   weighed  in  the 
balances  of  time  and  found  wanting,  it 
shall  be  thrown  down  and  destroyed 
utterly  and  forever.    [Cheers.]  The 
triumph  of  the  Land  League  will  be  a 
;  triumph  of  civilization  over  barbarism 
— a  triumph  of  democracy  over  feudal- 
ism— a  triumph  of  human  rights  over 
,  blood-rusted  prerogatives. 

Again,  men  of  Galway,  it  is  the  old 
battle  with  new  banners  and  new  war- 
cries,  but  waged  against  the  same  old 
foe. 

Again,  it  is  the  auroral  dawn  of  a 
:  civilization  of  liberty  and  light  that  is 
dispelling  the  Egyptian  darkness  of  an 
ancient  despotism. 

Again,  it  is  the  people  against  the 
aristocracy. 

Again,  it  is  the  spirit  of  St.  Patrick, 
with  unliftcd  hands,  invoking  the  aid 
of  Heaven  against  the  oppressors  of 
God's  poor. 

Under  which  banner,  men  of  Gal- 
way, will  you  fight — under  the  green 
banner  of  the  Irish  saint,  or  under  the 
black  flag  of  the  Irish  lord  ?  [Cries  of 
"St.  Patrick,"  and  cheers.]  "Choose 
ye  this  day  whom  ye  will  serve,"  and 
having  chosen,  stand  firm,  listening  to 
the  voice  of  no  channer,  charm  he 
ever  so  wisely;  and,  ere  long,  without 
a  crime,  but  without  a  doubt,  Ireland 
will  be  held  by  her  people  and  tilled 
for  her  people,  and,  once  thus  held, 
I  this  prayer-perfumed  Isle  of  Saints,  the 
home  and  altar  of  the  Virgin  Mother 
of  the  Nations,  who  has  wept  for  cent- 
uries in  grief,  but  never  once  blushed 
in  shame,  at  the  slaughter  of  her  first- 
born, slain  for  the  sweet  love  of  her — 
this  Holy  Land  of  Ireland,  for  a  thou- 
sand generations  to  come,  liberated 
from  tyranny  and  luminous  ^rith  vir- 
tue, will  be  the  chosen  heritage  and 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


6i 


perpetual  inheritance  of  the  Irish 
race.  [Loud  and  long-continued 
cheering.] 

"  Mr.  Redpath,"  says  the  DubHn 
NaHo7t,  "  was  serenaded  at  the  resi- 


dence of  Father  Conway  in  the  evening 
by  two  bands  and  a  great  concourse  of 
people.  He  made  a  second  speech, 
which  he  announced  would  be  his  fare- 
well speech  in  Ireland." 


IX. 

ST.  BRIDGET  AND  BRIDGET. 


[This  speech,  published  in  the  Boston  Pilot,  is  preceded  by  a  letter  from  Mr.  Redpath, 
dated  New  York,  December  3,  1880,  in  which  he  writes:  "My  dear  Boyle  O'Reilly:  As 
you  have  published  the  speeches  that  I  delivered  in  Ireland,  I  send  you  a  speech  that  I  wrote  io 
be  delivered  in  America,  but  which  must  remain  an  unspoken  speech,  because  I  cannot  read 
it  aloud.  Yotc  liked  my  other  speeches,  but  this  is  the  speech /like.  I  intended  to  make  it 
in  response  to  the  toast  of  St.  Bridget  and  Bridget,'  at  the  little  supper  you  and  my  other  Irish 
friends  promised  me  at  my  next  visit  to  Boston.  I  wrote  it  one  day  in  Dublin,  about  three 
months  ago,  after  I  had  come  back  from  Mayo,  and  had  again  seen  the  agonies  of  separation  at 
the  railway  stations — scenes  that  nearly  drove  me  wild  last  winter,  and  that  I  can  never  recall 
without  keen  suffering.  The  thoughts  these  scenes  give  rise  to  I  noted  down,  intending,  by  and 
by,  to  put  them  into  a  more  perfect  form.  But  I  send  them  as  I  wrote  them,  with  only  two  or 
three  slight  alterations.  I  can  never  deliver  the  speech,  because  when  I  come  to  tell  of  the 
partings  I  do  not  see  the  words  I  wrote,  but  the  agonies  I  witnessed,  and  my  heart  chokes.  If 
you  care  to  publish  it,  you  can  do  so  and  welcome.    Ever  your  friend,      James  Redpath."] 


THERE  was  once  a  saint  in  Ireland 
who  bore  the  name  of  Bridget. 
From  the  ^  nature  of  the  discussions, 
largely  carried  on  by  American  ladies, 
that  appear  Irom  time  to  time  in  the 
Boston  dailies,  I  long  ago  came  to  the 
conclusion  that,  if  a  consensus  of  Yan- 
kee opinion  could  be  obtained,  it  would 
be  found  to  be  a  quite  common  belief 
in  our  beloved  land  that  St.  Bridget  left 
no  successor  of  her  own  name. 

"  One-half  of  the  world  does  not 
know  how  the  other  half  lives."  This 
famous  utterance  is  the  dim  shadow  of 
a  finger-post  that  shows  how  far  away 
yet  is  the  good  time  coming,  foreseen 
by  the  poets  and  the  prophets.  A  cent- 
ury often  separates  our  kitchens  and 
our  parlors.  The  struggle  that  is  going 
on  in  Europe  to-day  between  the  Com- 
ing and  the  Past,  between  Democracy 
and  Feudalism,  is  felt,  in  another  form, 
in  almost  every  wealthy  household  in 
America.  There,  in  the  Old  World, 
Feudal  Oppression  still  strives  to 
conserve  its  power  to  dominate  and 
debase ;  here,  in  the  New  World,  the 


homes  of  the  nineteenth  century  are 
often  made  unhappy  by  the  mischief 
that  it  has  already  wrought.  There, 
the  oppression  of  the  feudal  classes  has 
driven  millions  into  hovels  so  wretched, 
and  has  kept  them  in  squalor  so  foul ; 
it  has  forced  them  to  lodge  in  cabins, 
without  other  floors  than  the  damp 
earth,  without  stoves,  without  grates, 
without  mirrors,  without  wash-stands, 
without  wash-tubs,  without  towels,  with- 
out sheets,  without  blankets,  often 
without  windows  and  without  chim- 
neys ;  it  has  doomed  the  young  Irish 
peasant  girls  and  Irish  peasant  mothers, 
and  the  gray-haired  Irish  grandmothers, 
and  even  the  great-grandmothers,  to  go 
for  months,  and  sometimes  for  years, 
without  shoes  and  stockings,  without 
decent  underclothing,  without  any  sin- 
gle article  of  feminine  adornment  or 
luxury  ;  it  has  fed  them  for  generations 
on  a  diet  fit  only  for  the  beasts  that 
perish — on  potatoes  or  Indian  meal  and 
skim-milk  thrice  a  day,  with  meat  only 
once  or  twice  a  year ;  it  has  kept  them 
in  compulsory  ignorance  for  so  many 


62 


ST.  BRIDGET  AND  BRIDGET. 


centuries  past,  and  up  to  a  period 
within  the  memory  of  men  still  living, 
by  every  device  that  selfishness  could 
devise  and  cruelty  could  enforce,  feudal 
England  has  so  pitilessly  suppressed  the 
Irish  intellect  and  oppressed  the  Irish 
heart  that,  when  it  coronates  its  crimes 
by  expelling  the  Irish  poor  by  city-fulls 
from  the  land  of  their  birth,  her  cham- 
pions have  found  it  easy  to  convert 
other  nations,  and  especially  our  peo- 
ple, to  their  own  infamous  creed  that 
the  sufferings  of  the  Irish  people  are 
the  natural  result  of  their  own  vices 
and  faults  of  character.  England,  by 
her  policy  in  Ireland, — not  for  this  or 
any  one  generation  only,  but  for  seven 
red  centuries, — has  fed  and  lodged  the 
Irish  peasantry  as  we  feed  our  pigs — 
although  American  farmers  house  their 
pigs  in  greater  comfort.  England  has 
sternly  and  remorselessly,  for  seven 
hundred  years,  kept  the  Irish  peasantry 
outside  the  pale  of  European  civiliza- 
tion, by  a  wall  made  of  bayonets ;  and 
now,  when  she  hurls  them  by  the  mill- 
ion into  our  complex  and  affluent  civil- 
ization, when  we  find  their  children 
awkward  in  the  handling  of  utensils 
that  they  had  never  even  heard  of  at 
home,  careless  as  to  a  cleanliness  that 
it  was  impossible  to  cultivate  in  their 
dark  and  smoky  cabins,  and  apt — 
as  all  newly  emancipated  people  are 
apt — to  forget  that  discipline  is  not  only 
not  incompatible  with  social  democ- 
racy, but  essential  to  an  order  based  on 
liberty, — England,  by  her  hirelings  and 
parasites,  pointing  to  poor  "  Patrick's  " 
and  "  Bridget's  "  short-comings,  plays 
tlie  part  of  "  Dick  Deadeye"  with  the 
pomp  of  a  "  Turv^eydrop,"  and  says : 
"  I  told  you  so  !    I  told  you  so  !  " 

When  I  was  in  Ireland  I  found  that 
whatever  the  British  tourists  said 
about  the  Irish  peasants,  as  a  general 
rule,  was  the  exact  opposite  of  the 
truth.  When  ihe  Southern  "  Ku- 
Klux  "  shouted  tiiat  the  negroes  were 
committing  outrages,  everybody  knew, 
if  he  had  studied  the  history  of  the 
ten  years  after  Appomattox,  that  the 
haters  of  the  blacks  had  been  doing 


i  some  mischief,  and  were  trjdng  to 
I  conceal  it.  It  is  the  same  in  Ireland. 
1  The  methods  and  the  apologies  for 
j  tyranny  are  essentially  the  same  in 
!  every  country.  It  is  always  the  rich 
j  robber  who  shouts  "  Stop  thief."  In 
I  Ireland,  it  is  the  landed  class  who 
commit  agrarian  outrages — who  ac- 
cuse ihe  landless  toilers  of  agrarian 
j  outrages.  And,  in  the  case  of  Bridget, 
j  it  is  the  class  who  have  kept  her  in 
enforced  ignorance  at  home,  and  in 
compulsory  penury,  who  should  be 
held  responsible  for  her  ignorance  of 
the  machinery  of  opulence  in  America. 
She  is  not  to  blame,  and  she  ought  not 
to  be  blamed  for  it.  When  our  Amer- 
ican ladies  suffer  annoyance  at  Brid- 
get's want  of  skill,  they  should  not  be 
angry  at  their  servant,  but  at  feudal 
England,  for  it.  And,  if  they  would 
take  the  trouble  to  try  and  learn  from 
their  "  Irish  serv^ant-girls "  the  true 
story  of  their  life  at  home,  they  would 
sometimes  make  a  discovery  that 
would  surely  astound  them — that  St. 
Bridget  had  left  successors  who  bore 
her  name;  that  many  of  these  Irish 
servant-girls,  who  so  often  "  try " 
American  patience  by  their  ignorance, 
and  provoke  American  petulance  by 
their  awkwardness,  have  braved  dan- 
gers of  the  sea  and  perils  of  the  un- 
known lands  that  the  Puritan  saints 
have  been  almost  canonized  for  con- 
fronting ;  and  that  they  have  faced 
and  overthrown  temptations  which 
Catholic  saints  have  been  canonized 
for  resisting.  They  might  discover  at 
the  same  moment  that  some  of  the 
traits  that  American  ladies  most 
strongly  condemn  in  the  character  of 
their  "  hired  girls  "  are  neither  vices 
nor  faults,  but  only  the  reverse  sides  of 
the  medals  of  the  heart  that  bear  on 
the  other  sides  the  sacred  figures  of 
self-sacrifice  and  filial  affection. 

New  England,  on  its  "  Forefathers' 
Day,"  celebrates  the  heroism  of  the 
Puritans  who  crossed  unknown  seas 
to  a  land  unknown — who  faced  the 
known  terrors  of  the  ocean  and  the 
I  unknown  terrors  of  the  wilderness — ' 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


63 


"  that  they  might  worship  God  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  their  conscience." 
I  honor  New  England  for  honoring 
these  heroes,  and  I  do  not  condemn 
New  England  for  forgetting  to  re- 
member that  these  Puritans  had  their 
faults ;  that  they,  too — these  fugitives 
from  religious  oppression — became  in 
their  turn  the  oppressors  of  other  men 
who  sought  to  worship  God  according 
to  the  dictates  of  their  consciences. 
But,  if  ever  the  Irish  race  in  America 
estabhsh  a  "  Foremothers'  Day,"  I 
shall  regard  them  as  cowards  if  they 
do  not  place  side  by  side  with  the 
Pilgrim  fathers  of  the  seventeenth 
century  the  Irish  servant-girls  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  Heroism  is  hero- 
ism, whether  it  sings  psalms  or  says 
its  beads ;  whether  it  lands  on 
Plymouth  Rock  or  at  Castle  Garden  ; 
whether  the  motive  that  inspires  it  is 
love  of  God  or  love  of  man,  of 
Heaven  or  home. 

We  have  all  seen  the  "  Departure  of 
the  Pilgrims  from  Holland."  New- 
England  genius  has  drawn  aside  the 
thick  ciurtain,  woven  by  the  jealous 
spirit  of  three  centuries  to  conceal  it ; 
and,  throwing  on  that  immortal  scene 
the  tender  lights  of  poetry  and  paint- 
ing, it  has  exhibited  that  kneeling 
group,  with  bended  knees  and  hands 
clasped  in  prayer,  as  they  were  ready 
to  embark  on  a  stormy  sea  for  an  in- 
hospitable shore. 

In  the  West  of  Ireland,  this  very 
year,  I  have  witnessed  many  scenes 
more  pathetic  and  as  noble  :  groups 
of  young  Irish  maidens  clinging  to 
their  sobbing  mothers,  and  weeping, 
and  shrieking,  and  quivering  in  an- 
guish, and  tearing  themselves  away ; 
and  then  trying  to  enter  the  cars,  but 
instantly  rushing  back  again,  and 
wildly  clasping  the  desolate  old  women 
to  their  bursting  hearts  once  more. 
Suddenly,  the  whisde  of  the  engine 
sounded ;  and  then  arose  such  a 
chorus  of  sobs  and  shrieks  and  moans ; 
there  was  such  a  frantic  flinging  up  of 
trembling  and  wrinkled  arms  to 
Heaven ;  there  were  such  tumultuous 


i  outbursts  of  passionate  despair  in  that 
I  ancient  tongue  that  centuries  of  sorrow 
have  consecrated  to  the  holy  sacrament 
of  human  suffering,  that  I  have  been 
forced  again  and  again  to  rush  away 
and  hide  from  the  appalling  spectacle 
of  hopeless  anguish.    And  yet  I  was 
only  a  looker-on ;   and  yet  I  knew 
that  these  young  girls  were  going  from 
;  a  worse  than  an  Egyptian  house  of 
;  bondage  to  a  better  than  a  Hebrew 
1  Land  of  Promise. 

i  Why  did  they  go  ?  Not  to  escape 
;  religious  persecution,  nor  even  tO  ad- 
vance their  worldly  ambition ;  not 
from  the  love  of  adventure,  nor  from  a 
hatred  of  home;  for  no  Irish  girl 
would  ever  leave  her  native  land  if 
she  could  live  in  comfort  in  it.  They 
I  went,  these  young  girls,  unguarded 
!  and  untaught  in  the  ways  of  the  world, 
into  the  dread  unknown  of  earthly 
life,  most  of  them  never  having  seen 
a  steamer,  nor  the  sea ;  some  of  them 
without  a  friend  to  welcome  them  on 
the  foreign  shores  on  which  they 
would  be  landed  almost  penniless. 
Why  did  they  go  ?  Often  it  is  to  save 
their  aged  parents  from  the  terrors  of 
impending  eviction — that  the  white- 
haired  woman  who  bore  them  might 
die  in  peace  beneath  the  old  cabin 
roof. 

The  Pilgrims  were  men  of  tough 
fiber,  and  inured  to  hardship.  They 
went  with  their  families.    They  emi- 
grated in   colonies.    They  preferred 
exile  to  oppression.    They  acted  fi*om 
principle.     I  honor  them  for  it.  I 
;  recognize  their  courage.    But  I  honor 
I  still  more  these  Irish  girls  who  go 
!  alone  from  the  land  they  love — not  at 
the  dictation  of  the  manly  intellect, 
but  from  the  promptings  of  the  womanly 
heart. 

I  have  heard  it  said  that  Bridget, 
fresh  from  tlie  bogs  of  Connemara,  is 
more  of  a  Yankee  than  the  Yankees 
themselves  in  driving  a  shaq)  bargain  • 
for  her  services.  I  have  always  re- 
garded this  charge  as  a  compliment  to 
the  Irish  girl.  I  have  looked  on  it  as 
I  an  augury  of  good  omen  to  "our  re- 


64 


57:  BRIDGET  AND  BRIDGET. 


public,  for  it  seemed  to  me  to  show 
that  she  was  quick  to  adapt  herself  to 
the  spirit  of  American  institutions.  It 
appeared  to  me  a  guarantee  that  her 
children  would  be  sure  to  assimilate 
themselves  with  American  nationality. 
But  in  Ireland  I  discovered  the  true 
reason  for  this  prompritude,  so  to 
speak,  of  financial  naturalization ;  that 
it  came  not  from  her  intellect,  but  her 
memory  ;  because  she  knew,  what  the 
American  lady  did  not  know,  that  the 
old  folks  at  home  were  at  the  mercy 
of  a  class  without  pity,  but  with 
despotic  power.  No  American  who 
has  ever  come  in  contact  with  landlord 
power  in  Ireland  will  blame  Bridget 
for  her  dread  of  it,  even  if  it  is  shown, 
as  he  may  think,  at  his  own  expense. 
Let  it  teach  us  tliat  no  race  can  be  op- 
pressed anywhere  without  ever}-  race 
being  forced  to  sutler  from  it.  We  are 
taxed  in  America  to-day  by  the  same 
class  that  oppresses  the  Irish  at  home. 
The  Irish  in  America  pay  the  rents  of 
thousands  of  farms  in  the  West  of 
Ireland.  Every  dollar  that  is  sent 
there  is  abstracted  from  our  national 
wealth,  and  hence  we  Americans  have 
a  \-ital  interest  in  the  liberation  of  Ire- 
land from  landlord  tyranny.  Having 
driven  the  old  Irish  from  all  the  fertile 
lands  of  Ireland  into  the  once  desolate 
Connaught,  and  then  driven  them  by 
thousands  out  of  Connemara  beyond 
the  sea,  the  landlords  still  pursue  them 
across  the  Atlantic,  and  tax  them  be- 
neath the  Stars  and  Stripes."  Taxa- 
tion without  representation  is  t}Tanny," 
and  as  we  are  not  represented  in  Parlia- 
ment we  owe  it  to  our  great  national 
principle  to  help  to  destroy  the  land- 
lord tyranny  of  Ireland. 

If  I  did  not  know  that  Bridget 
would  forgive  me  without  the  asking,  I 
should  beg  her  pardon  for  keeping  her 
waiting  during  this  political  digression, 
but  I  know  that  she  hates  the  Irish 
landlords  with  such  a  hearty  Irish  ha- 


tred that  she  would  be  willing  to  stand 
for  hours  and  hear  them  denounced, 
j      There  is  a  class  of  women  in  Ireland 
whose  purity  of  life  and  self-sacrificing 
devotion  to  the  poor  have  evoked  the 
I  admiration  of  every  honest  heart  that 
ever  beat  in  their  presence.    St.  Bridget 
is  their  representative  in  the  past,  and 
my  saindy  friend,  the  Nun  of  Kenmare. 
is  their  representative  to-day.    I  mean 
the  Irish  nuns.    Not  a  Catholic  nor 
Irishman  among  you   honors  them 
more  than  I  do,  although  I  am  neither 
'  Irishman  nor  Catholic.    Not  one  of 
you  would  more  quickly  or  more  indig- 
nantly resent  any  imputation  on  their 
saindy  fame.     Not  by  the  millionth 
degree  of  a  hair's  breadth  would  I  lower 
the  lofty  pedestal  on  which  Irish  piety 
and  Irish  gratitude  have  placed  their 
images.    But  I  ask  you  to  remember 
— if  there  is  one  among  you  who  needs 
public  recognition  as  a  standard  by 
which  you  must  measure  human  worthi- 
ness— that  there  is  another  and  a  larger 
class  of  Irish  women,  not  secluded 
1  from  the   world,  and   enveloped  by 
reverence  and  guarded  by  traditional 
\  sancnty,  but  fighting  in  the  thickest 
j  and  murkiest  smoke  of  the  batde  of 
I  life,— solitary,  often  tempted,  always 
,  poor. — who,  in  ever)-  land  and  among 
\  ever}-  class,  have  done  an  equal  credit 
to  Irish  character  and  to  womanly  vir- 
tue and  to  their  religious  faith;  I  mean 
:  the     Irish  ser\-ant-girls."    Now,  if  I 
were  a  Catholic,  I  should  still  be  a 
.  republican,  and  I  should  insist,  if  I 
were  placed  where  my  voice  had  au- 
I  thority,  that  there  should  be  a  democ- 
racy in  canonization ;  that  if  any  one 
i  man — St.  Anthony,  for  example — was 
;  entitled  to  have  his  name  enrolled  on 
I  the  list  of  saints  for  his  resistance  to 
I  one   temptation,   then,  that  Ireland 
,  should  be  known  in  the  calendar  of 
{  the  Church,  not  as  the  Island  of  St 
;  Bridget,  but  the  Island  of  the  saints 
I  called  Bridget. 


i 


A  SPEECH  BY  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


6S 


X. 

"PARNELL  AND  HIS  ASSOCIATES." 

[Mr.  Redpath  responded  to  the  toast  of  "  Parnell  and  his  Associates,"  at  the  banquet  on 
St.  Patrick's  Day,  i88i,  at  Brooklyn,  N.  Y.    The  report  is  from  the  Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle.~\ 


Mr.  Chairi7ia)i  afid  Gentlemen  : 

THERE  could  be  no  more  appro- 
priate day  than  St.  Patrick^s  Day, 
save  one — ^the  sacred  day  of  the  Nativ- 
ity— on  which  to  send  a  message  of 
thanks  and  of  clieer  to  Mr.  Parnell  and 
his  associates,  for  they  are  carrying  on 
the  work  of  St.  Patrick  in  the  spirit  of 
St.  Patrick,  as  he  carried  forward  the 
work  of  his  Master  in  the  spirit  of  the 
Master. 

What  is  the  Irish  struggle  ?  It  is 
not  a  mere  squeaking  squabble  about 
rent ;  it  is  hot  a  selfish  contest  for  self- 
ish ends  between  classes  or  between 
creeds.  It  is  a  noble  crusade  for  hu- 
man rights ;  it  is  a  holy  war  to  break 
the  chains  of  the  oppressed,  to  feed 
the  hungry,  to  clothe  the  naked,  and  to 
uplift  the  down-trodden  people  of  Ire- 
land. Never  in  our  time  has  there 
been  a  grander  fight  for  a  grander 
cause. 

The  spirit  of  the  leaders  in  this  war 
is  worthy  of  its  lofty  aim.  They  do 
not  seek  to  array  class  against  class, 
or  race  against  race,  or  religion  against 
religion.  They  issue  no  appeals  to 
the  baser  instincts  of  men.  They 
make  no  uniighteous  demands.  They 
ask  only  for  justice  and  for  equality  of 
rights. 

Their  creed  is  a  bouquet  gathered 
from  the  gardens  qf  modern  thought, 
containing  not  a  single  flower  that 
liberty  has  not  planted,  and  philosophy 
watered,  and  the  love  of  mankind 
wooed  into  beauty.  [Applause.] 

It  is  rarely  that  any  honest  Ameri- 
can citizen  can  give  an  unstinted  ap- 
proval of  the  principles  and  the  lead- 
ers of  his  party.  He  often  feels  forced 
to  make  a  choice  of  evils — to  strike  an 
average — and  to  cast  his  ballots,  not 
from  his  heart,  but  from  his  head. 

5 


There  is  no  such  necessity  in  Ireland 
to-day.  The  leaders  and  the  princi- 
ples of  the  Land  League  are  alike  and 
equally  worthy  of  approval  and  ac- 
ceptance. I  respond  with  all  my 
heart  to  the  toast  of  "  Mr.  Parnell  and 
his  associates."  I  went  to  Ireland 
prejudiced  against  them,  but  I  soon 
learned  there  to  honor  and  admire 
them.  They  are  the  advance-guard 
of  American  liberty  on  its  conquering 
tour  around  the  world.  [Applause.] 
It  is  idle  now  to  question  Mr.  Parnell's 
capacity  for  such  leadership  as  these 
times  demand — which  is  not  the  in- 
tellectual autocracy  of  an  O'Connell, 
but  the  organizing  intuitions  "of  a  Lin- 
coln. "  New  times  demand  new 
measures  and  new  men  " ;  and  the  era 
of  autocrats  has  vanished,  or  is  rapidly 
vanishing.  The  new  leaders  must  be 
content  to  organize  existing  forces,  and 
to  obey  the  will  of  the  people — not  to 
create  parties  and  to  command  them. 
That  nation  is  not  fit  for  liberty  which 
depends  for  victory  on  any  one  leader. 
During  our  war,  general  after  general 
failed,  and  our  President  was  slain,  but 
the  republic,  although  it  wept,  never 
fixltered  for  an  hour.  My  hope  of 
Ireland  to-day  is  chiefly  founded  on 
the  belief  that  if  Mr.  Parnell  and  all  of 
his  associates  in  leadership  were  to 
die  or  to  be  imprisoned  to-night,  the 
Irish  nation  would  arise  sadder,  but  as 
resolute  as  now,  to  renew  the  fight  to- 
morrow morning.  [Applause.]  No 
living  man  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of 
organizing  the  mighty  moral  forces  of 
Ireland  to-day.  The  Irish  people  or- 
ganized themselves.  [Applause.]  I  had 
the  happiness  to  be  a  spectator  of  their 
work.  For  the  first  time  in  hundreds 
of  years,  from  the  day  of  Brian 
Boroihme,  the  victor,  to  the  day  of 


66 


''PARNELL  AND 


HIS  associates:' 


Victoria,  the  evictor  [laughter],  the 
Irish  people  themselves  have  come  to 
the  front.  The  Land  League  is  the 
organization  of  the  Irish  Democracy. 
Yet  even  in  a  democracy,  although 
leaders  are  no  longer  kings,  they  can 
largely  influence  for  a  time  the  jorog- 
ress  of  the  popular  aspirations,  Mr. 
Parnell  and  his  associates,  thus  far, 
have  shown  great  skill  and  wisdom 
and  courage.  They  have  not  yet  made 
a  single  mistake.  The  frantic  efforts 
of  the  monarchical  press  to  proclaim 
errors  only  serve  to  point  out  where 
another  saber-thrust  has  penetrated 
the  royal  coat  of  armor.  [Applause.] 
1  have  watched  every  movement  in 
Parliament  and  in  Ireland,  and  I  re- 
peat that  the  Land  League  leaders, 
up  to  the  present  hour,  have  not  com- 
mitted a  solitary  blunder. 

Obstruction  has  not  only  delayed 
the  triumph  of  despotism  in  Ireland, 
but  it  has  torn  off  its  mask  and  drawn 
out  most  of  its  fangs.  England  to- 
day stands,  not  arraigned  ouly,  but 
convicted,  of  tyranny  and  hypocrisy. 
When  last  the  coercion  laws  \yere  en- 
acted, Irish  patriots  were  swept  by 
thousands  into  the  prisons,  if  not  un- 
wept, unchronicled.  To-day  they  can 
be  counted  by  units,  and  the  British 
Government  has  declared  that  less 
than  one  hundred  shall  be  arrested. 
Only  one  of  the  great  Irish  leaders  has 
been  sacrificed — a  man  so  pure,  so 
noble,  so  self-sacrificing,  so  patriotic, 
that  the  British  (jovernment  docs  not 
dare  to  leave  him  at  large — a  man 
who  loves  Ireland  and  Hberty  so  fer- 
vently that  he  would  kiss  the  scaffold 
with  more  than  the  rapture  of  a  lover  if 
he  thought  that  by  doing  so  he  could 
marry  liberty  to  Ireland — Michael 
Davitt.    [Enthiisiastic  cheering.] 

Boycotting  has  brought  the  land- 


lords to  bay,  almost  to  reason — the 
first  time  that  either  event  has  occurred 
in  their  history.  [Applause.] 

I  have  no  time  to  speak  of  the  more 
conspicuous  leaders  associated  with 
Mr.  Parnell.  It  must  suffice  to  say 
that,  knowing  them  well,  I  regard 
them  as  the  most  noteworthy  and  the 
noblest  group  of  public  men  on  this 
planet  to-day. 

But,  gendemen,  Mr.  Parnell  has 
other  associates  greater  than  they. 
When  I  think  of  his  associates  I  see 
behind  him  the  united  Irish  nation — 
the  center  of  his  army — of  which  the 
right  and  left  wings  are  the  Irish  race 
of  two  hemispheres,  while  away  at  the 
antipodes  there  is  an  Irish  reserve, 
eager,  liberal,  and  alert,  ready  to  sus- 
tain him  if  his  main  army  should 
waver.  England  cannot  evict  a  whole 
nation ;  England  cannot  imprison  a 
whole  race;  England  cannot  coerce 
the  lovers  of  liberty  among  every  race, 
and,  therefore,  if  we  shall  keep  step, 
refusing  to  quarrel  among  ourselves,  I 
believe  that  we  shall  all  live  to  see 
the  dawn  of  liberty  in  Ireland.  [Ap- 
plause.] 

I  praise  the  present  leaders  of 
Ireland  because  they  are  men  of  our 
day,  with  modern  ideas — they  look 
ahead,  not  behind  ;  they  do  not  waste 
their  lives  in  eulogizmg  the  old  chiefs 
and  kings  of  Ireland,  but  in  preparing 
the  way  for  the  good  time  coming, 
when  there  shall  be  neither  chiefs  nor 
kings  on  this  earth.  The  man  who 
follows  a  ghost  lands  at  last  in  a  grave- 
yard. The  Irish  leaders  of  to-day 
have  their  faces  set  toward  the  Zion 
of  republicanism.  They  are  looking 
forward,  and  leadifig  their  people  to 
the  promised  land,  foretold  by  so  many 
Irish  poets  and  prophets — the  free  re- 
public of  Ireland.  [Applause.] 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


67 


XI. 

WILLIAM  BENCE  JONES,  MARTYR. 

["  Mr.  James  Redpath,"  says  the  Boston  Globe,  "  whose  letters  from  Ireland  to  the 
New  York  Tribune  during  the  late  famine  ia  that  unhappy  country  were  read  by  so  many  per- 
sons in  America,  and  created  such  a  practical  sympathy  in  behalf  of  the  grief  and  hunger 
stricken  people  of  that  unfortunate  isle,  is  staying  at  the  Parker  House,  where  he  arrived  after 
lecturing  in  Portland,  Maine.  In  view  of  the  Queen's  speech  to  the  British  Parhament,  and  its 
references  to  Irish  affairs,  and  also  in  view  of  several  newspaper  articles  which  have  recently 
appeared  in  this  city  on  tlie  Irish  question,  the  Globs  desired  to  lay  before  its  readers  some 
accurate  information  upon  this  important  subject.  Not  knowing  any  person  more  competent  to 
speak  upon  it  with  authority  and  without  prejudice,  both  from  personal  observation  and  from 
extensive  reading, — as  all  who  heard  that  gentleman's  recent  lecture  in  Music  Hall  in  defense  of 
the  Irish  Land  League  will  admit, — a  representative  of  the  C7/i?/v  called  upon  Mr.  Redpath  yester- 
day, and  found  him  conversing  upon  Irish  affairs  with  the  genial  editor  of  the  Boston  Pilot,  John 
Boyle  O'Reilly.  Receiving  a  cordial  greeting  from  the  h9st,  the  reporter  explained  the  object 
of  his  call,  when  the  followmg  interesting  conversation  ensued  :  '  ] 


REPORTER.—"  Mr.  Redpath, 
what  do  you  think  of  the  Queen's 
speech  ?  " 

Mr.  Redpath. — "Well,  it  shows 
that  although  his  intentions  toward  Ire- 
land may  be  as  good  as  any  of  the  good 
intentions  with  which  Hell  is  said  to  be 
paved,  yet  Mr.  Gladstone  thoroughly 
misconceives  the  situation  in  Ireland, 
and  is  incapable  of  conferring  on  it  any 
lasting  benefit:  For  example :  She, 
that  is,  he,  says  that  the  act  of  1870 
has  conferred  great  benefits  on  Ireland, 
or  words  to  that  effect.  I  quote  from 
memory.  Now,  the  truth  is  that  the 
law  of  1870,  which  was  honestly 
.intended  by  its  author,  Gladstone,  and 
its  improver,  John  Bright,  to  benefit 
the  tenants  outside  of  Ulster,  was  of 
no  service  whatever  to  them.  The 
reason  for  this  is,  that  in  the  West  of 
Ireland  the  people  were  too  poor  to 
fight  before  the  landlord  courts  for  the 
rights  it  conferred  on  them,  while  in 
the  east  of  the.  island  the  great  land- 
lords, followmg  the  Duke  of  Leinster's 
example,  compelled  their  tenants  to 
take  leases  in  which  they  were  forced 
to  waive  their  rights  under  that  act." 

Rep. — "  Was  that  custom  really 
general  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  Yes,  it  was  almost  universal. 
Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  William 
Bencc  Jones,  on  whom  two  Boston 
journals  have  had  editorials  within  a 


week.  He  never  granted  a  lease  until 
1870;  but  since  that  time  he  has  in- 
sisted that  those  tenants  v»ho  had 
largely  improved  their  farms  should 
take  leases  for  thirty-one  years.  The 
reason  why  he  granted  leases  on  those 
terms  was  that  his  rents  were  excess- 
ively high,  and  therefore  he  could  easily 
i  evict  his  tenants  if  a  bad  season  came. 
By  eviction  for  non-payment  of  rent,  he 
confiscated  all  the  tenant's  improve- 
ments, and  was  not  liable  under  the 
Gladstone  act  for  any  compensation  to 
be  paid  the  tenant.  In  this  way,  '  he 
unjustly  contrived,'  to  use  the  language 
of  Father  O'Leary,  a  priest  in  one  of 
the  parishes  in  which  Jones's  estates 
are  located,  ^  to  make  the  act  of  1S70 
a  dead  letter.'  " 

Rep. — "  You  say  that  Mr.  Jones 
compelled  his  tenants  to  take  out  leases 
for  a  term  of  thirty-one  years.  Am  I 
to  understand  you  to  m.ean  that  the 
Gladstone  act  of  1870  only  applied 
to  leases  drawn  for  certain  ])eriods, 
and  not  to  those  drawn  for  other 
periods,  as,  for  instance,  the  leases 
drawn  for  thirty-one  years  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  No.  It  was  intended  to 
extend  a  fraction  of  the  Ulster  custom 
over  the  Catholic  counties  of  Ireland. 
It  provided  that  if  a  tenant  was  capri- 
ciously evicted  by  his  landlord,  that 
the  landlord  should  pay  him  seven 
years'  rent ;  that  is  to  say,  if  the  rent 


68 


WILLIAM  BENCE 


JONES,  MARTYR. 


was  jC^\o  per  annum,  the  tenant  should 
receive  ^£"70,  wjth  a  reasonable  com- 
pensation for  improvements  made  \\-ith- 
in  twenty-one  years,  and  that  he  should 
also  be  recompensed  for  unexhausted 
manures  :  but  if  he  was  e\ncted  for 
non-payment  of  rent,  he  got  no  com- 
pensation whatever.  Under  the  Ulster 
custom  a  tenant  gets  compensation 
under  any  circumstances,  and  for  im- 
provements made  both  by  himself  and 
predecessors,  and  he  could  not  be 
evicted  at  all  as  long  as  he  paid  his 
rent.  Now,  by  these  leases,  the  v.ealthy 
tenants  v.  aived  their  rights  under  that 
law,  and,  therefore,  Jones  and  the 
others  insisted  upon  their  tenants,  to 
whom  formerly  they  v.ould  give  no 
leases,  taking  them  out" 

Rep. — "Mr.  Jones  seems  to  be  praised 
as  a  model  landlord,  and  Xha  Herald savs 
that  *  he  is  beyond  question  one  of  the 
ablest  and  most  authoritative  exponents 
of  the  \-iews  of  his  class,  and  that  his 
opinion  on  agrarian  issues  carries 
whatever  weight  should  be  granted  to 
an  experience  of  forty  years  both  as  a 
land-owner  and  as  a  farmer  in  Ireland." 

J.  R. — For  more  than  thirty  years 
Mr.Jones  has  maintained  the  reputation 
in  the  County  Cork  of  being  one  of  the 
worst  landlords  in  the  South  of  Ireland. 
It  was  said  of  him  that  he  had  raised 
rack-renting  to  the  level  of  a  science. 
More  than  twenty  years  ago.  his  life 
was  threatened,  and  he  v/ould  have 
been  killed  but  for  the  interference  of 
the  parish  priest.  Mr.  Jones,  in  his 
essays,  speaks  about  his  own  farm  and 
how  much  money  he  has  spent  on  it. 
He  forgot  to  mention,  doubtless  in  the 
haste  of  composition,  that  his  own 
thousand  acres  were  made  into  one 
farm  by  evicting,  \;'ithout  compensation, 
scores  of  .families  ^whose  children  are 
now  in  exile.  His  tenants  pay  the 
highest  rents  of  any  in  the  County  Cork,  • 
and,  I  have  heard  it  said  by  responsi- 
ble men,  the  highest  in  the  South  of 
Ireland.  He  savs  in  his  article  in 
Mat/;iil/afi\  '  I  never  raised  anv  man's 
rent  except  at  long  interv  als,  or  thirty- 
one  years,  or  his  hfe.'      Note  that 


phrase — 'or  his  life.'  Whenever  one 
of  his  tenants  dies,  his  successor,  son, 
wife,  or  brother  must  pay  an  increase 
of  rent,  sometimes  to  the  extent  of 
nearly  one  hundred  per  cent.  Take 
two  or  three  examples :  ^\^len  Michael 

I  White  of  Cloheen  died,  a  few  years 
ago,  Jones  raised  the  rent  on  White's 
vridov,"  from  jQ^o  to  jQ^o.  When 
Patriclc  Hayes  died,  Jones  raised  the 
rent  on  the  farm  from  twenty-five 
shillings  to  ^2  an  acre,  and  compelled 
the  nev/  tenant,  under  threat  of  eviction, 

i  to  take  a  lease  of  twenty-one  years, 
v/hich  confiscated  the  improvements 
that  his  father  had  made,  although 
those  improvements  included  a  dwell- 
ing-house and  out-buildings  costing 
fifteen  hundred  dollars.  Only  two  or 
three  months  ago,  when  a  widov/ 
named  Walsh  died,  he  caused  her  son 
to  consent  to  an  increase  of  ^15  per 
annum.  Some  of  his  farms  were  held 
at  such  high  rates  that  one  after 
another  tenant  was  ruined.  As  an  illus- 
tration, take  the  Dempsey  farm.  The 
Government  valuation  was  ten  shillings 
per  acre.  Remember  that  was  estimated 
on  the  farm  as  it  had  been  improved 
by  the  tenant.  Remember  that  when 
a  tenant  in  Ireland  pays  'Griffith's 
[that  is  the  Government]  valuation,'  he 
IS  paying  a  tax  on  his  own  industry, 
improvements,  and  capital — because 
the  tenant  has  reclaimed  the  land  at 
his  own  sole  expense  from  barren  bog 
or  sterile  hill-slopes,  and  '  Griffith's 
valuation'  was  based  in  ever}-  case,  not 
on  the  land  as  the  tenant  received  it 
from  the  landlord,  but  as  the  assessor 
found  it  when  improved  at  the  tenant's 
cost.  Grifiith's  valuation  is  a  Shylock 
rental,  and  yet  last  winter  every  land- 
lord who  charged  fifty  per  cent, 
over  Grifiith's  valuation  was  regarded 
by  his  impoverished  tenants  as  a  good 
landlord  I  On  Dempsey's  death  Jones 
raised  the  rent  to^2  per  acre,and  now  it 
is  \  acant  and  growing  weeds.  Three 
different  tenants  were  ruined  bv  it. 
Why,  a  gentleman  of  Cork  recentiy  told 
a  priest,  a  friend  of  mine,  that  he  had 
asked  one  of  Mr.  Jones's  tenants  the 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATH. 


69 


name  of  his  landlord,  and  the  peas- 
ant replied,  '  Un  Diabhoil ' — a  devil. 
As  to  the  HerahVs  statement  that  Mr. 
Jones  is  an  authority,  the  Herald^ 
among  the  rest  of  its  vast  and  varied 
misinformation  on  Irish  affairs,  does  not 
seem  to  know  that  the  most  eminent 
solicitor  in  the  County  Cork,  Mr. 
Wright,  in  open  court  more  than  once, 
to  the  entire  satisfaction  of  the  magis- 
trates, denounced  William  Bence  Jones 
as  a  liar.  Jones  has  always  been  thor- 
oughly unpopular,  not  only  with  the 
peasantry  but  with  the  magistrates  also. 
He  has  taken  so  much  pleasure  in  de- 
nouncing the  Irish  people  that,  when  he 
was  asked  to  subscribe  toward  the 
erection  of  a  Protestant  cathedral  in 
Cork,  he  promised  a  subscription  of 
^500,  on  the  condition  that  '-no  Irish 
architect  should  be  employed."  Every 
magistrate  in  that  district,  Catholic  and 
Protestant,  denounces  him  as  a  dog- 
matic, insolent  snob.  A  correspondent 
of  the  London  Standard,  a.  Tory  paper, 
who  went  down  to  Cork  to  defend 
Jones,  wrote :  '  In  Cork  I  have  met,  at 
different  times,  at  least  half  a  dozen 
magistrates,  of  Protestant  and  Catholic, 
Conservative  and  Liberal  views,  who 
are  in  accord  as  to  one  point  only, 
viz.,  that  Mr.  Bence  Jones,  because  of 
certain  peremptory  behavior,  intention- 
al or  constitutional,  as  the  case  may 
be,  is  not  beloved  by  them.'  This  is  a 
very  mild  way  of  stating  that  he  is  uni- 
versally execrated  by  the  gentry  as  well 
as  by  the  common  people  of  Cork. 
Jones  says  that,  under  his  administra- 
tion, whenever  there  were  no  leases  the 
rents  were  considerably  raised.  '  I  was 
under  no  engagement,  expressed  or 
implied,  with  these  tenants,  and  there- 
fore felt  at  liberty  to  make  my  own 
terms  with  them.  I  accordingly  let 
them  the  land  at  the  highest  rent  it 
was  in  my  opinion  worth  to  them. 
This  was  very  often  a  very  considerable 
advance  on*  the  former  i*ent,  but  it  was 
still  less  than  in  my  judgment  the  land 
was  intrinsically  worth.'  That  is  cool, 
but  he  was  still  more  frank  in  his  con- 
versations in  Ireland.       said  to  a  well- 


known  Protestant  clergyman  in  County 
Cork  :  '  I  can  deal  with  my  farms  as  with 
any  other  chattels.'  This  remark  was 
made  in  a  conversation  about  the  farm 
held  by  Edward  Lucy  in  Castle  Liskey, 
County  Cork.  This  farm  fell  into 
Jones's  possession,  and  the  first  thing  he 
did  was  to  demand  an  increase  in  the 
rent  of  six  shillings  per  acre,  and  to  tell 
the  old  man,  Edward  Lucy,  who  had 
lived  all  his  life  on  that  farm,  that  he 
would  add  at  least  another  six  shillings 
per  acre.  What  was  the  result  of  this 
action  of  Jones  ?  It  is  pathetically 
told  in  a  few  simple  words  by  Father 
O'Leary  :  '  Lucy  gave  up  the  farm  and 
died  of  a  broken  heart.'  Not  only  as  a 
landlord  but  as  a  magistrate  also,  Mr. 
Jones  has  made  himself  excessively  un- 
popular by  his  harsh  and  despotic 
decisions.  Instances  are  given  in  which 
his  arbitrary  and  excessive  findings 
were  appealed  from  and  overruled. 
Last  winter,  he  made  himself  especially 
obnoxious  by  first  denying  in  England 
that  there  was  any  distress  in  the  dis- 
trict, and  by  seeking,  on  his  return 
home, '  to  put  a  stop  to  the  relief  works 
which  had  kept  many  families  in  the 
town  from  either  dying  of  starvation  or 
being  thrown  on  the  rates.'  This  is 
the  expression  of  a  resident  of  the  dis- 
trict. He  himself  did  not  contribute 
one  shilling  to  the  relief  fund." 

Rep. — "  Why  should  a  landlord  do 
those  things  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  Lord  Lansdowne's  agent, 
Mr.  Trench,  did  precisely  the  same 
thing.  The  landlords  do  those  things 
bec:mse  they  want  to  drive  out  large 
numbers  of  poor  tenants  and  confis- 
cate their  improvements  without  com- 
pensation,and  add  them  to  their  grazing 
farms.  This  Jones  is  the  sort  of  man 
who  is  held  up  as  a  model  landlord. 
Now,  the  Journal  states,  if  I  remem- 
ber correctly,  that  this  man's  life  was 
threatened,  and  that  a  grave  was  dug 
opposite  his  door,  and  at  the  close  of 
its  article  that  paper  charges  those 
threats  and  outrages  on  the  leaders  of 
the  Land  League.  The  Journal  seems 
not  to  have  known  a  meeting  of  the 


70 


WILLIAM  BENCE  JONES,  MARTYR. 


Land  League  was  promptly  called  and 
that  it  publicly  denounced  a  threatening 
letter,  or  notice,  which  had  been  served 
on  Jones.  The  Journal  also  charges 
on  the  leaders  of  the  Land  League 
the  maiming  of  cattle  and  other 
agrarian  outrages.  Why,  Mr.  Pamell 
is  just  as  incapable  of  giving  any  such 
advice,  direct  or  indirect,  as  Mr. 
Stockwell  himself.  Mr.  Dillon  is  a 
man  as  sensitive  and  refined  as  the 
editor  of  the  Advertiser,  and  Davitt  is 
quite  as  incapable  of  any  such  action 
as  Mr.  Haskell  of  the  Herald.  The 
truth  is  that  not  a  soHtary  outrage  has 
occurred  in  Ireland,  except  where  the 
Land  League  was  weak." 

Rep. — "  I  see,  Mr.  Redpath,  that  the 
Jourfial  last  week  said :  '  Mr.  Smalley, 
of  the  New  York  Tribime^  for  which 
you  wrote  so  many  interesting  letters 
on  this  Land  question,  '  a  corres^x^nd- 
ent  of  exceptional  information,  declares 
that  since  the  beginning  of  the  dis- 
turbance no  week  has  witnessed  great- 
er political  excitement  or  more  fla- 
grant instances  of  lawlessness  than  the 
week  before  last.'  " 

J.  R. — "  No  man  who  knows  Mr. 
Smalley  would  doubt  any  statement 
made  on  his  personal  authority,  but, 
instead  of  being  in  a  position  where  he 
can  procure  '  exceptional  information,' 
he  is  in  precisely  the  worst  place  in 
Europe  to  learn  the  truth  about  Ire- 
land— London.  I  know  myself,  of  my 
own  knowledge,  that  some  of  the 
statements  telegraphed  to  the  Ncv,' 
York  Tribune  by  Mr.  Smalley  when  I 
was  in  Ireland  were  false.  He  simply 
took  his  '  exceptional  information ' 
from  the  London  press,  and  nine  out 
of  every  ten  of  their  accounts  of 
outrages  in  Ireland  were  utterly  un- 
true." 

Rep. — "  Mr.  Redpath,  it  has  been 
reported  that  the  Fenians  are  joining 
the  Land  League  in  great  numbers. 
What  do  you  think  of  those  rumors  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  I  think  it  is  quite  likely 
that  they  are  correct.  The  Fenians, 
or  Nationalists,  frequently  belong,  as 
individuals,  to  the  Land  League,  al- 


though some  of  the  old  leaders  are 
what  we  call  '  sore-heads.'  The  young 
men  of  Ireland,  as  a  class,  believe 
not  only  in  peasant  proprietorship,  but 
in  independence,  and  they  are  only 
working  for  the  Land  League  with  the 
hope  that  it  will  prove  a  sort  of  base 
of  supplies.  They  not  only  are  not 
hostile  to  it,  but  they  are  cooperating 
with  it  heartily.  But  they  do  not 
mean  to  be  satisfied  with  its  triumphs 
when  they  come,  as  come  they  will. 
They  will  be  accepted  only  as  a 
part  of  what  justice  to  Ireland  de- 
mands." 

Rep. — "  The  Journal,  in  one  of  its 
articles  on  this  movement,  says  that 
'  the  Land  League  leaders  have  dis- 
claimed the  intention  of  precipitating 
a  collision,  and  admit  that  the  people 
are  not  prepared  for  such  a  movement; 
and  yet,  with  a  fatuity  which  is  incom- 
prehensible, they  have  persisted  in  a 
i  course  which  promises  to  bring  upon 
I  Ireland  the  curse  of  an  unorganized 
and  abortive  revolt.'  What  do  you 
say  about  those  statements  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  I  say  that  that  statement  is 
untrue.  The  Land  League  leaders 
have  held  the  people  in  check.  They 
have  permitted  no  outbreak,  and  each 
and  every  statement  that  there  was  an 
outbreak,  and  every  prediction  that 
there  would  be  one,  came  from  the 
hopes  of  the  English  press,  and  not 
from  the  intentions  of  the  Land  League 
leaders." 

Rep. — "  But,  after  all,  Mr.  Redpath, 
would  it  not  be  better,  as  a  practical 
measure,  for  the  leaders  of  the  Land 
League  to  accept  a  modified  system 
of  reform,  such  as  Gladstone  and  Bright 
propose  ?  " 

J.  R.— "  No,  it  would  not.  The  radi- 
cal wrong  of  Irish  landlordism — a  wrong 
that  cannot  be  overcome  by  any  com- 
I  promise — lies  in  the  facts  that  the  land- 
lords are  absentees ;  that  whether  they 
get  rack-rents  or  more  reasonable  rents, 
the  money  is  always  drained  out  of  the 
country,  and  that  the  machinery  for 
the  enforcement  of  those  laws  is  in  the 
hands  of  the  landlords.    It  is  not  a 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDFATH.  71 


question  of  whether  rack-rents  or  mod-  ! 

erate  rents  shall  continue.    The  ques-  ; 

tionis:  Shall  Ireland  bleed  at  every  pore  | 

or  only  at  half  of  them,  or  not  be  bled  | 

at  all?    English  legislation  is  always  | 


founded  on  a  firm  faith  in  phlebotomy. 
Now  Ireland  can  never  prosper  until 
this  wound  is  stopped  —  until  absentee 
landlordism  abdicates  in  favor  of  peas- 
ant proprietorship." 


XII. 

IRISH  CRIMES  AND  OUTRAGES. 

[From  an  interview  published  in  the  Chicago  Tribune  of  February  7,  1881,  the  subjoined 
passages  on  Irish  outrages  are  quoted.  "  In  the  course  of  the  conversation,"  says  the  Tribune, 
"  the  reporter  asked  for  Mr.  Redpatli's  opinion  as  to  the  probable  effect  of  Michael  Davitt's 
arrest  and  the  suspension  of  the  Irish  Obstructionists.    Mr.  Redpath  said:"] 


THE  arrest  of  Mr.  Davitt,  I  think, 
will  result  in  a  solid  Ireland.  It 
will  drive  thousands  of  the  Protestant 
farmers  of  Ulster  into  the  Land  League. 
Of  late  the  Land  League  has  been 
making  rapid  progress  in  Ulster,  be- 
cause the  farmers  find  that  they  have 
no  adequate  protection  under  the  Ul- 
ster custom  against  a  constant  increase 
of  rent,  and  they  have  come  to  see  that 
their  only  security  lies  in  a  peasant 
proprietary.  They  have  enjoyed,  many 
of  them  for  over  two  hundred  years, 
greater  rights  than  Gladstone  proposes 
to  extend  to  the  rest  of  Ireland,  and 
yet  they  find  these  rights  powerless  to 
protect  them  against  the  exactions  of 
the  landlords. 

Reporter. — "  Is  Davitt  still  as  pop- 
ular as  ever  ?  " 

Mr.  Redpath. — "  He  has  a  stronger 
hold  on  the  hearts  of  the  people  than 
any  man  in  Ireland.  His  arrest  will 
produce  a  belligerent  animosity  against 
the  Gladstone  Government,  because 
everybody  in  Ireland  knows  that,  while 
Mr.  Davitt  has  maintained  the  right  of 
free  speech,  he  has  never  uttered  a  word 
urging  violence.  On  the  contrary,  he 
has  done  more  to  restrain  the  people 
from  committing  violence  than  all  the 
British  troops  and  constabulary  put  to- 
gether. He  is  the  idol  of  the  peasantry. 
But,  even  if  the  British  Government 
should  arrest  ev^ery  leader,  the  move- 
,  ment  would  go  on,  because  the  rising 


generation  in  Ireland  are  as  well  edu- 
cated as  the  people  of  Illinois.  The 
national  schools  there  are  quite  as 
good  as  our  public  schools,  and  the 
people  are  all  repubHcans.  This  is 
emphatically  a  people's  movement.  It 
is  not  the  result  of  agitation  by  the 
leaders.  This  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  the  Land  League  made  its  most 
rapid  strides  while  Davitt,  Parnell,  and 
Dillon  were  not  directing  its  move- 
ments,— while  some  of  them  were  in 
America  and  others  in  London." 

Rep. — "  What  is  your  view  as  to  the 
obstructive  tactics  adopted  by  Parnell 
and  his  associates  in  Parliament,  which 
resulted  in  their  suspension  ?  " 

J.  R. — "The  Speaker  himself,  I  was 
told,  has  often  expressed  the  opinion 
that  Parnell  is  one  of  the  ablest  Par- 
hamentarians  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, and  it  is  certain  that  he  has 
never  been  at  fault  in  his  motions  and 
objections:  This  is  an  English  opinion 
of  Parnell,  you  understand.  His  ac- 
tion was  simply  what  is  known  among 
us  as  *  filibustering.'  By  this  system 
of  obstruction,  the  Irish  members  com- 
pelled all  Europe  to  listen  to  the  story 
of  their  wrongs,  instead  of  submitting, 
as  they  had  done  before,  to  be  voted 
down  with  the  silent  insolence  of  a 
sneering  majority  of  English  members. 
It  was  a  masterly  system  of  advertising 
the  wrongs  of  Ireland." 

Rep. — "  Have  you  seen  the  state- 


72 


IRISH  CRIMES  AXD  OUTRAGES. 


ment  made  in  the  correspondence  of 
one  of  the  Chicago  papers  relative  to 
the  alleged  increase  of  outrages  in  Ire- 
land of  late  years  ?  " 

J.  R. — Yes  ;  and  I  have  carefully- 
analyzed  it.  The  best  answer  to  it  is  a 
telegraphic  dispatch  by  the  London 
correspondent  of  the  Dublin  Freeman's 
Journal,  published  in  November  last. 
I  sometimes  read  it  at  my  lectures. 
Here  it  is  :  '  The  outer}-  against  crime 
in  Ireland  ought  to  be  pretty  consider- 
ably checked  by  the  results  of  a  return 
just  issued.  The  proportion  of  the 
criminal  classes,  in  and  out  of  prison, 
taken  together,  is  about  half  as  large 
in  Ireland  as  in  England  and  Scotland. 
The  proportion  of  convicts  is  consid- 
erably below  one-half  and  persons  in 
places  of  punishment  not  more  than 
one-half  As  regards  peculiar  classes 
of  crime,  I  find  that,  under  the  heads  of 
offenses  against  property  with  violence, 
Scotland  is  about  six  times,  and  England 
and  Wales  about  two  and  one-half 
times,  as  criminal  as  Ireland ;  and  that, 
under  the  head  of  '  offenses  against 
morality,'  the  proportion  is  as  twelve  to 
five  against  Scotland.  Yet  they  tell  us 
that  we  are  the  most  criminal  race  on 
the  face  of  the  globe  ! '  This  is  the 
xmswer  furnished  by  the  British  Gov- 
ernment itself  to  its  slanders  on  the 
Irish  people — slanders  now  translated 
into  coercion  acts. 

Now,  as  regards  the  Government 
report,  published  in  the  Chicago  paper, 
official  comparative  statistics  —  also 
gathered  and  published  by  the  British 
Government — show  that  in  1S45  there 
were  2,477  niore  outrages  than  were  re- 
ported last  year;  that  in  1846,  12,374 
crimes  were  committed,  as  against 
5,609  crimes  last  year  ;  that  in  1847 
there  were  four  times  as  many  outrages 
— that  is,  nearly  21,000 — recorded 
against  the  Irish  people  as  there  were 
last  year :  that  the  crimes  committed 
were,  in  1848, 18,080 ;  in  1849,  14,908; 
in  1850,10,039:  in  1851,9,144;  and 
in  1852,  7,824.  So  you  see  that,  ac- 
cording to  British  official  returns,  the 
crime  reported  in  Ireland  is  far  below 


I  what  it  used  to  be,  although  the  papers 
i  report  in  general  terms  more  crimes 
last  year  than  were  ever  known  before, 
j  and  they  attribute  these  crimes  to  the 
j  influence  of  the  Land  League.  Thir- 
I  ty-five  years  ago,  when  these  returns 
began,  there  were  21,000  crimes  com- 
mitted.   Last  year  there  were  about 
one-fourth  of  that  number. 

"  That  is  the  final  answer  furnished 
by  the  British  Government  to  its  own 
impeachment  of  the  Land  League." 

Rep. — "Are  these  crimes  specially 
attributable  to  the  land  agitation  ?  " 
I      J.  R. — "  If  you  will  analyze  the  re- 
port of  the  crimes  of  last  year,  you  will 
i  find  that  one-half  of  the  cases  of  out- 
rage reported  in  L'lster  are  threatening 
letters,  in  the  proportion  of  seventy- 
seven  to  one  hundred  and  forty-nine ; 
and   that  the  next   highest  item  in 
I  the  catalogue  is  published  under  the 
marvelous    heading    of   '  othen^-ise.' 
Now,  it  is  notorious  to  ever\-  one  who 
has  studied  modem  Irish  histor}-,  and 
it  has  been  proved  again  and  again, 
'  that  the  most  of  these  threatening 
letters  are  written  bv  land-ao^ents  and 
I  bailifls,  in  order  to  keep  the  landlords 
I  out  of  the  countr)',  so  that  they  may 
'  have  a  better  chance  to  steal  from  the 
!  tenants.    There  is  no  pretense  that 
these  threatening  letters  were  written 
I  by  the  Land  League. 
I      "  Take  the  next  province.  The  num- 
ber of  outrages  reported  is  two  hun- 
dred and  twenty-eight,  and  of  these 
one  hundred  and  fifty-one  were  threat- 
1  ening  letters.   So  much  for  Leinster. 
"  Take  Munster   next.    There  six 
hundred  and  fort}--three  outrages  were 
reported,  and  of  these,  three  hundred 
I  and  fifty-six  were  threatening  letters. 
I      "  In  Connaus:ht,  under  the  head  of 
I  *  letters    and    other\\-ise,'   there  are 
1  three  hundred  and  fifty-seven  outrage? 
I  out  of  six  hundred  and  ninety-eight  re- 
ported. 

'•This  is  the  best  showing  that  the 
I  British  Government   has   ever  been 
!  able  to   make.    The  authorities  for 
these   reports   of  outrages   are  the 
magistrates,  and   the  magistracy  of 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATH. 


73 


Ireland,  from  Lord  Chief  Justice  May- 
down  to  the  lowest  stipendiary  magis- 
trate, are  all  landlords  and  their  par- 
tisans. The  English- Irish  bench  is  the 
most  corrupt  judiciary  in  Europe. 
Even  the  moderate  Freeman'' s  Journal^ 
which  was  hostile  to  Parnell  while  he 
was  in  America*,  and  which  is  owned 
by  the  Lord  Mayor  of  Dublin,  says 
that  whatever  little  confidence  the  peo- 
ple of  Ireland  might  have  had  in  the 
magistracy  of  the  country  as  a  body,  is 
being  rapidly  undermined  by  the  course 
which  mem.bers  of  that  institution  are 
now  taking  by  gi\  ing  exaggerated  ideas 
as  to  the  condition  of  their  localities. 

"  Take  the  County  Cavan,  for  exam- 
ple. The  statements  of  the  magis- 
>  tracy  there  are  emphatically  denied  by 
the  town  commissioners,  and  by  lead- 
ing citizens  who  are  not  members  of 
the  Land  League.  The  bishop  of  the 
diocese  publicly  challenged  Mr.  Forster 
to  name  the  localities  in  which  out- 
rages had  occurred.  All  unite  in  say- 
ing that  the  count}^  was  enjoying 
absolute  peace.  My  experience  of 
last  summer  convinced  me  that  there 
were  fewer  crimes  in  Ireland  than 
among  any  similar  population  in 
Europe.  That  correspondent  who 
sends  these  stories  to  the  Chicago  paper 
is  an  ultra-Orangeman.  That  is  to  say, 
he' is  a  religious  Ku-klux,  and  his  state- 
ments about  Irish  outrages  are  about  as 
reliable  as  those  of  a  Cyclops  of  the 
Ku-klux  Klan  would  be  in  relation  to 
outrages  by  negroes  in  our  own  South." 

Rep. — "  Yet  the  London  papers 
often  report  outrages." 

J.  R. — "  Yes,  and  never  correct  them. 
Here  is  a  specimen  of  their  lies  about 
Ireland,  a  paragraph  from  a  recent 
number  of  the  Dublin  Nation  : 

"  '  We  have  this  week  a  fresh  crop 
of  bogus  agrarian  outrages  exposed  in 
a  manner  which  the  landlord  party 
will,  no  doubt,  think  extremely  incon- 
siderate. Thus,  a  Parsonstown  corre- 
^  spondent  telegraphed  some  days  since 
that  a  Galway  landlord,  named  Gar- 
diner, had  been  tarred  and  feathered  by 
a  body  of  masked  men  in  his  own 


house.   It  was  a  capital  story  from  the 
coercionist   point   of  view,  but  Mr. 
Gardiner  has   stupidly    spoiled  the 
,  effect  of  it  by  asserting  that  it  does 
!  not  contain  a  w'brd  of  truth  !  Another 
i  Galway  landlord,  Mr.  Edward  Ken- 
'  nedy,  Abbey  Lodge,  Loughrea,  was 
said  to  have  been  fired  at  as  he  was 
walking  in  his  garden.    Another  good 
story  :  but  then  Mr.  Kennedy,  follow- 
'  ing  the  example  of  Mr.  Gardiner,  coV?- 
;  tradicts  it.    He  even  adds  that  he  had 
no  difference  with  his  tenantry,  and 
j  that  he  is  himself  a  member  of  the 
Land  League!    Again,  on  Saturday 
!  last  it  was  reported  that  "  a  bailift', 
!  named    John    McManus,   on  Lord 
Greville's  property,  near  Drumsham- 
bo,"  had  been  fired  at ;  but  Mr.  Philip 
O'Reilly,  agent  to  Lord  Greville,  writes 
'  from  Colamber,  Rathowen,Westmead"i, 
that  that  nobleman  has  no  property 
near  Drumshambo,  and  no  bailiff  of 
the  name   of  McManus  in  his  eni- 
'  ployment  I    One   more :    The  Fi'ee- 
man  of  Tuesday  announces  with  refer- 
I  ence  to  an  alleged  slitting  of  a  man's 
ears   at    Doon,    County   Clare,  be- 
cause he  paid  his  rent,  th'at  it  is  en- 
i  abled  authoritively  to  say  that  the  out- 
rage never  took  place.    Now,  this  is 
too   bad.     Contradicting   "  outrage " 
stories  may  serve  the  cause  of  the 
tenantry  and  their  friends,  but  how  is 
'  it  likely  to  serve  that  of  the  landlords  ? 
There   is,  however,  one  consolation 
left  for  the  lords.    The  English  pub- 
lic, for  whom  chiefly  the  manufactured 
outrages  are  prepared,  are  not  allowed 
to*  hear  of  the  exposures.    The  Eng- 
lish newspapers,  so  far  as  we  can  find 
out,  have  not  dared  to  "spoil  trade  "  by 
j  correcting  any  one  of  the  four  false- 
I  hoods  to  which  we  have  referred  I' " 
I      Rep. — "Then  there  are  few  agrarian 
I  outrages  in  Ireland  ?  " 
!      J.  R. — "  No,  sir ;   there  are  many 
!  agrarian  outrages  in  Ireland.    Let  me 
give  you  a  specimen  of  the  real  agra- 
rian outrages,  as  reported  in  a  late  letter 
from  Michael  Davitt,  just  before  he 
was  flung  into  jail.    He  writes  : 

" '  The  following  particulars  of  the 


74 


IRISH  CRIMES  AND  OUTRAGES, 


estate  of  Ballinamore,  County  Mayo, 
the  property  of  Mr.  Anthony  Ormsby, 
which  were  pubHshed  by  the  League 
yesterday,  will  show  what  an  industri- 
ous people  have  to  bear  under  this 
infamous  system  of  landlordism,  and 
explaip  the  determined  stand  which 
they  are  now  taking  against  its  acts 
and  supporters :  In  seventy-three  hold- 
ings upon  this  estate  (numbering  five 
hundred  and  four  persons)  the  Govern- 
ment valuation  is  ;£"595  19s.,  w^hile  the 
present  rent  is  ;£'924  5s.,  or  close  upon 
double  the  rent  which  should  be  legally 
exacted.  Almost  the  entire  of  these 
lands  consist  of  ??io7mtai?i  slopes,  and 
were  all  reclaimed  by  the  te?iants  7vith- 
out  afiy  aid  from  the  landlo?'d  /  They 
are  also  compelled  to  do  duty-work — 
that  is,  employ  their  families  and  horses 
for  a  certain  number  of  days  per  annum 
in  gratuitous  labor  for  the  landlord. 
Tenants  must  obtain  consent  from  him 
ere  any  of  their  children  are  married, 
under  penalty  of  a  fine  being  added  to 
the  rent.  J.  Casey  was  fined  ten  shil- 
lings for  a  stone  on  the  top  of  a  gate 
not  being  whitewashed  to  the  landlord's 
liking.  John  Ruane  was  compelled  to 
remove  from  where  he  lived  and  to 
build  a  new  house  on  some  w-aste  land 
in  Order  to  have  it  reclaimed.  When 
the  house  was  finished,  the  landlord 
made  him  pull  it  down  again  and 
erect  it  te?t  yards  farther  away.  When 
the  land  was  reclaimed  Ruane  was 
again  removed  higher  up  the  mountain, 
where  he  shortly  afterward  died.  Pat 
Walsh,  a  mason,  worked  at  a  building 
for  thirty-five  days,  but  would  only  be 
paid  for  twenty,  and  upon  protesting 
against  this  treatment,  Mr.  Ormsby 
made  him  throw  dow^n  the  wall,  and 
then  evicted  him  from  his  holding  with- 
out compensation.  Thomas  Cavanagh 
was  compelled  to  throw^  down  his  cabin 
and  build  a  new  one.  After  a  few 
years'  time  he  was  forced  to  change  to 
a  bog,  where  he  had  to  build  again. 
When  the  bog  was  reclaimed  he  was 
changed  again,  and,  upon  remonstrating 
against  a  fourth  removal,  he  was  evicted 
without  compensation,   and   had  to 


enter  the  work-house,  where  himself 
and  wife  soon  after  died.  Other 
instances  of  similar  treatment  were  also 
given  and  published,  the  truth  of  which 
I  can  vouch  for,  as  I  have  had  the 
same  statements  repeated  to  me  on 
my  visit  to  that  part  of  the  W^est  of 
Ireland  during  the  recent  famine.' 

"  I  discovered  many  similar  outrages 
in  the  West  of  Ireland — quite  as  bad  as 
the  cases  reported  by  Mr.  Davitt.  The 
London  press  rarely  tell  the  truth  about 
Ireland.  I  never  read  but  one  true 
statement  about  Ireland  in  the  London 
Times — in  the  number  for  March  12, 
1847.  It  was  exasperated  because  the 
Irish  famine  was  taxing  the  English 
exchequer,  and  it  rose  for  a  moment 
to  the  level  of  truth.    It  said  : 

"  '  Ireland,  then,  is  at  the  same  time 
rich  and  poor.  It  produces  a  vast 
superabundance  of  food,  but  that  food 
is  drained  from  its  shores.  It  is  not, 
however,  drained  by  the  state.  It  is 
drained  in  a  great  measure  by  the 
landlords  and  their  creditors,  who,  the 
more  they  get,  the  more  they  will  drain. 
Now  what  does  mercy  to  Ireland  re- 
quire under  these  circumstances  ?  Is  it 
mercy  to  let  the  landlords  go  on,  drain, 
drain,  drain,  forever  ?  Is  it  mercy  to  let 
him  go  on  squeezing  the  hapless  peasant 
down  to  the  skin  of  his  potato  ?  Is  it  of 
any  use — has  it  been  of  any  use — to  re- 
mit rates  and  taxes  and  lend  money  to 
the  landlords  ?  No  !  the  only  mercy  is 
to  keep  in  the  island  and  upon  the 
spot  the  gracious  gifts  of  Providence 
and  rewards  of  human  toil,  and  to  com- 
pel the  land-owner  to  spend  them  in 
the  employment  of  the  laborer  and  the 
relief  of  the  poor.' 

"  That  is  sound  sense.  But  there  is 
only  one  way  to  carry  out  that  policy — 
by  abolishing  Irish  landlordism ;  by 
making  every  farmer  the  owner  of  the 
soil  he  tills;  and  yet,  because  Davitt 
and  Parnell  and  his  associates  advo- 
cated that  wise  measure  of  statesman- 
ship, the  London  Ti??ies  howled  until 
Davitt  was  im.prisoned,  and  Parnell 
and  his  associates  brought  into  court, 
and  the  coercion  law  enacted !  " 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATH. 


75 


xm. 

AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 

•  

[There  will  be  few  names  more  famous  in  the  history  of  Ireland  in  iS8o  than  the  name 
of"  Capt. "  Boycott,  a  land-agent  of  the  County  Mayo,  against  whom  the  terrible  power  of  ostra- 
cism, or  social  excommunication,  was  evoked  by  the  peasantry  whom  he  had  pitilessly 
oppressed.  "Capt."  Boycott,  as  he  called  himself,  landed  in  New-York  in  April,  1881.  He 
was  interviewed  by  the  reporters  of  the  New- York  Sun,  New- York  Herald,  and  New-York 
Tribune.  Mr.  Redpath  was  interviewed  about  these  Boycott  interviews  by  the  Chicago  Inter- 
Ocean,  and  from  that  journal  of  April  14  the  subjoined  report  is  taken.  It  is  somewhat  elabo- 
rated by  extracts  from  Mr.  Redpath's  lecture  on  "What  I  know  about  Boycotting."] 


MR.  JAMES  REDPATH,  the  well- 
known  correspondent  in  Ireland 
of  The  Inter- Ocea7i,  being  tempo- 
rarily in  the  city,  the  opportunity  was 
seized  to  interview  him  on  the  subject 
of  the  recent  interviews  with  Captain 
Boycott,  published  in  the  New-York 
papers,  but  more  particularly  in  refer- 
ence to  one  which  appeared  in  the 
New- York  Herald.  The  result  of  the 
interview  with  Mr.  Redpath  will  be 
seen  in  the  following  report,  which  can- 
not fail  to  be  interesting,  both  on  ac- 
count of  the  subject  and  of  the  person 
who  granted  the  interview  : 

Reporter. — "  Mr.  Redpath,  have 
you  seen  the  interviews  with  Captain 
Boycott,  published  in  the  New- York 
papers  ?  " 

Mr.  Redpath. — "  Yes,  I  have  read 
the  reports  in  the  Sun.,  Tribune.,  and 
Herald:' 

Rep. — "  Have  you  any  objection  to 
ma.king  comments  upon  them  ?  " 

J.  R._"  No.  To  begin  with,  the 
Tribufie  reports  Captain  Boycott  as 
saying  '  the  Irish  people  had  been 
spoiled  by  being  humored.  They  de- 
clared that  they  were  determined  to 
get  rid  of  the  landlords,  but  had  no 
idea  what  they  would  then  do  with  the 
land.' 

"  My  answer  to  that  is,  that  the 
Irish  people  have  been  humored  for 
seven  hundred  years  by  being  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  the  most  oppressive 
laws  that  any  civilized  people  ever  en- 
dured without  rebellion,  and  that  there 
is  not  in  all  Europe  a  system  of  la,nd  i 
tenure  so  degrading  to  the  people  as  the  | 


land  tenure  of  Ireland,  for  which  Eng- 
land is  responsible.  The  Irisli  people 
are  determined  to  get  rid  of  the  land- 
lords, but  they  have  a  clear  idea  of 
what  they  will  then  do  with  the  land. 
They  will  cultivate  it .'  Captain  Boy- 
cott says  that  the  Land  League  would 
ruin  the  people.  Now,  no  popular 
movement  in  Ireland  has  ever  done  so 
much  before,  as  has  been  done  by  the 
Land  League  in  two  years,  to  raise  the 
character  and  relieve  the  sufferings  of 
the  Irish  people." 

Rep. — As,  for  example  ?  " 
J.  R. — ^'  By  saving  thousands  of  the 
Irish  people  from  death  by  hunger  and 
fevers  brought  on  by  hunger.  John 
Mitchell  shows  that  one  million  and  a 
half  of  the  Irish  people  perished  from 
hunger,  or  by  the  famine  fever  that  was 
brought  on  by  hunger,  from  1847  to 
1852.  Then.,  in  spite  of  repeated  warn- 
ings and  prayers  from  every  part  of  Ire- 
land, the  British  Government  did  not 
move  until  it  was  too  late.  Three 
millions  of  the  Irish  people  were  driven 
into  their  graves  or  out  of  Ireland,  in 
consequence  of  that  appalling  apathy;  ' 
and  in  England,  when  one  man,  listen- 
ing to  a  speech  by  Disraeli,  proposed 
three  cheers  for  the  Irish  famine,  that 
Jewish  miscreant  said, '  There  are  worse 
things  than  the  Irish  famine.'  Its  hor- 
rors were  welcomed  by  manv  Tories  as 
a  Providential  solution  of  the  Irish 
question.  There  were  hundreds  of  par- 
ishes in  the  West  of  Ireland  last  year 
where,  if  no  relief  had  come,  and  con- 
stant relief  had  not  been  given,  nearly 
i  the  whole  population  would  have  been 


AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 


swept  away.  Before  Mr.  Pamell  sailed 
for  America,  the  English  and  Irish  land- 
lord press  and  every  organ  of  the  Brit- 
ish Government,  including  Mr.  Low- 
ther,  the  Home  Secretary  for  Ireland, 
denied  that  there  was  any  famine. 
Famine  would  have  driven  the  Irish, 
by  hundreds  of  thousands,  into  exile, 
and  thereby  carried  out  the  English  pol- 
icy in  Ireland  for  two  centuries.  When 
Pamell  sailed,  the  British  Government 
saw  that  it  would  be  disgraced  by  any 
further  inaction,  and  so  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough  issued  an  appeal  for  help. 
Then  the  Mansion  House,  offended  at 
the  action  of  the  Castle  in  undertaking 
a  work  of  charity  that  precedent  had 
always  confided  to  the  Lord  Mayor  of 
Dublin,  issued  another  appeal ;  and 
the  New-York  Herald,  to  conciliate  the 
Irish- Americans  whom  its  assaults  on 
]}.Ir.  Parneil  had  alienated,  issued  an 
independent  American  call  for  aid. 
Money  poured  in  from  every  civilized 
nation,  and  there  were  not  more  than 
a  dozen  deaths  from  hunger  in  all  Ire- 
land. But  I  hold  that  the  Land 
League  is  entitled  to  the  credit  of  all 
the  relief,  from  whatever  source  it  came 
and  through  whatever  agency  it  was 
disbursed ;  because,  but  for  its  action, 
no  relief  would  have  reached  the  starv- 
ing peasantry  in  time  to  save  them. 
That's  the  first  great  service  rendered 
to  the  Irish  people  by  the  Land  League. 

"The  second  service  is,  by  so  unit- 
ing the  Irish  tenantry  that  landlord 
outrages  have  been  rendered  equally 
difficult  and  odious — such  outrages  as 
exacting  rack-rents  after  two  years  of 
bad  crops  and  one  year  of  famine, 
and  then,  on  the  failure  of  the  poor 
people  to  pay  them,  throwing  them  into 
the  road-side  to  die,  as  the  landlords 
did  after  the  great  famine  of  1847. 
The  more  impecunious  landlords  have 
been  forced  to  reduce  their  Shylock 
rentals,  in  many  cases  down  to  Grif- 
fith's valuation.  The  amount  of  money 
thus  saved  to  the  tenantry  is  vastly 
larger  than  the  amount  contributed  by 
all  the  world  for  the  relief  of  the  Irish 
peasantry  last  year.    I  have  seen  this 


sum  estimated  at  fifteen  millions  of  dol- 
i  lars,  but  I  do  not  know  whether  this 
sum   is  correct,  from   any  personal 
study.    It  is  certain  that  it  is  quite 
i  large. 

j  "  The  third  service  that  the  Land 
I  League  rendered  the  Irish  people  'was 
j  in  preventing  an  insurrection  or  wide- 
I  spread  agrarian  homicides.  The  Irish 
peasantry  in  1847,  believing  that  Prov- 
idence sent  the  famine,  lay  down  and 
died  without  a  murmur.  But  the 
young  generation  in  Ireland  are  better 
educated  than  their  forefathers,  and 
the  belief  is  general  that  it  was  th^^- 
landlords  and  not  Providence  who 
blighted  the  pQtatoes.  And  they  are 
right.  For,  while  under  any  system 
of  land-tenure  there  would  be  occa- 
sional bad  seasons,  the  inevitable  result, 
in  every  climate  and  in  every  soil,  of 
planting  the  same  crop  year  in  and 
year  out  in  the  same  field  is  the  final 
ruin  of  the  crop.  Now  why  do  the 
peasantry  plant  potatoes  only  on  their 
little  holdings  ?  Because,  after  the 
great  famine,  the  people  were  driven 
out  of  the  good  lands  that  they  had 
reclaimed  at  their  own  expense  and  by 
their  own  labor,  and  those  who  did  not 
die  or  emigrate  were  driven  to  little 
patches  on  the  edges  of  bogs  or  on  the 
sterile  slopes  of  mountains — holdings 
so  small  that  the  poor  people  could 
7iot  rotate  their  crops.  So,  blight  be- 
came inevitable.  But  even  the  peas- 
antry who  ne\'er  thought  of  this  cause 
of  blight,  knowing  that  they  could  not 
pay  their  rack-rents  from  extreme  pov- 
erty, but  would  gladly  have  done  so  if 
they  were  able,  were  determined  not  to 
be  murdered  or  banished  for  it  even  un- 
der the  pretext  of  the  '  enforcement  of 
the  rights  of  property.'  They  believe 
that  peasants  have  rights  as  well  as  land- 
lords, and  that  the  men  through  whose 
unaided  toil  the  bogs  and  hill-sides  of 
the  West  of  Ireland  were  made  arable 
have  in  justice  and  in  law  the  first 
equitable  title  for  support  from  the  so{l. 
This  is  not  a  '  communistic '  doctrine. 
I  Gladstone  himself  has  taught  it,  and 
i  John  Stuart  Mill,  and  John  Bright. 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  RED  PATH.  77 


So,  if,  last  spring,  the  landlords  had  en-- 
forced  their  Shylock  '  rights,'  they  and 
their  agents  would  have  been  killed  by 
hundreds  from  Donegal  to  Cork.  The 
Land  League  taught  them  a  better 
way,  and  where  fifty  thousand  British 
soldiers  and  Irish  constables  were 
unavailing  to  keep  the  peace,  the 
leaders  of  the  Land  League  preserved 
order  in  Ireland. 

"  If  the  leaders  of  the  Land  League 
had  accomplished  nothing  more  than 
these  three  reforms,  its  leaders  would 
have  been  entitled  to  rank  side  by  side 
in  the  Pantheon  of  Irish  Gratitude  with 
the  greatest  Irishman,  in  my  opinion, 
who  ever  lived — Daniel  O'Connell. 

"  Here  is  a  report  of  a  passage  in  my 
lecture  that  gives  another  reason  for 
my  admiration  of  the  action  of  the 
Land  League : 

" '  You  know  that,  in  Ireland,  when- 
ever a  Cork  man  and  a  Kerry  man 
meet,  they  quarrel,  and  sometimes 
fight.  [Laughter.]  I  heard  of  a  dis- 
pute between  a  Cork  man  and  a  Kerry 
man,  when  I  was  in  Ireland,  that  illus- 
trates their  traditional  antagonisms. 
The  Kerry  man  advanced  a  theory 
which  the  Cork  man  repelled  by  saying 
that  it  was  contrary  to  the  principles 
of  human  nature.  The  Kerry  man 
wasn't'  going  to  be  bluffed  in  that 
style  by  a  Cork  man,  and  so  he  said : 

"  '  Human  natur' !  Human  natur' — 
human  natur's  a  damned  scoundrel, 
anyhow.'  [Laughter.] 

"  '  Now,  I  don't  believe  in  that  theory; 
I  think  human  nature  is  a  pretty  good 
fellow  ;  at  any  rate  it  isn't  in  my  nature 
to  disparage  human  nature — but,  ladies 
and  gentlemen,  when  I  visited  the 
wretched  hovels  of  the  West  of  Ireland 
last  winter,  and  saw  the  broken-hearted 
women  and  broken-spirited  men  there, 
— for  the  poor  people  not  only  did  not 
know  where  the  money  was  to  come 
from  to  feed  their  children  till  the 
spring,  but  they  expected  to  be  driven 
out  of  their  homes  into  the  poor-house 
when  the  spring  came, — after  I  had 
learned  how  pitiless  the  landlords  were, 
and  how  helpless  the  tenantry,  I  went 


back  to  Dublin  and  said  to  Michael 
Davitt: 

" '  I'm  afraid  it  is  too  late  to  save 
your  people ;  the  hunger  has  crushed 
their  souls,  and  I  believe  nothing  will 
restore  their  manhood  except  emigra- 
tion to  a  land  where  they  will  have 
equal  rights.' 

" '  Michael  Davitt  told  me  to  wait  and 
see. 

"  '  I  did  wait,  and  I  did  see.  On  my 
second  visit  to  Ireland,  I  visited  the 
same  baronies,  the  same  parishes,  the 
same  counties  that  I  had  visited  last 
winter,  and  lo !  there,  where  I  had  left 
a  class  of  cowering  serfs,  I  found  a 
race  of  resolute  freemen!  [Cheers.] 
That  resurrection  of  the  manhood 
of  Ireland  is  the  beneficent  work  of 
the  Irish  National  Land  League. 
[Cheers.]'" 

Rep. — "In  an  interview  widi  the 
Sim^  Captain  Boycott  says  that  he  has 
never  had  any  personal  trouble  with  his 
neighbors  and  tenants,  and  that  the 
charges  circulated  against  him  were  an 
after-thought,  and  that  the  Earl  of 
Erne,  his  landlord,  refused  to  believe 
them  and  has  declined  to  remove  him 
from  the  agency." 

J.  R. — "  That's  true.  The  boot  was 
on  the  other  leg  then.  The  first  ac- 
count of  Boycott  ever  written  was  my 
letter  to  the  Intc?--Ocenn,  dated  Octo- 
ber 12,  1880.  You  had  better  quote  a 
part  of  it : 

" '  My  last  letter  ended  with  the  story 
of  a  "farmer"  who  was  "terrorized" 
into  paying  sixty  cents  a  day  to  men 
for  harvesting,  and  thirty-two  cents  to 
women.  Mr.  Bennett,  the  well-dis- 
posed correspondent  of  the  London 
Telegraphy  from  whom  I  quoted,  showed 
that  he  regarded  the  conduct  of  the 
peasantry  as  an  interference  with  "  the 
rights  of  property."  But  who  was  this 
"  peaceful  farmer  ?  "  Boycott — one  of 
the  most  merciless  miscreants  in  th^ 
County  Mayo — a  man  who  never  hesi- 
tated to  fling  families  out  of  their  little 
farms  into  the  poor-housd  if,  from  any 
cause,  they  failed  to  pay  their  rents — 
even  although  they  had  themselves  re- 


78 


AN  EXILE  OE  ERIN. 


claimed  the  land  from  absolute  sterility, 
and  drained  it,  and  fenced  it,  and  built 
the  houses  on  it.  He  held  a  rod  of 
iron  over  his  tenants  always.  They 
were  his  serfs — not  as  a  figure  of 
speech  in  Parliament,"  but  as  a  fact  of 
life  in  Ireland.  If  they  refused  to  obey 
his  behests  he  had  the  power  to  ruin 
them,  and  he  did  not  falter  in  using  his 
power.' 

"Captain  Boycott  came  into  that 
country  seventeen  years  ago,  but  had 
not  lived  there  five  years  before  he  had 
won  the  reputation  of  being  the  worst 
land-agent  in  the  County  Mayo.  He 
raised  the  rents  of  the  poor  tenants,  in 
many  cases,  to  double  Griffith's  valua- 
ation,  and  when  a  tenant  in  Ireland  pays 
*  only '  Griffith's  valuation  he  pays  a 
rent  not  merely  on  the  land  as  the 
landlord  gave  it  to  him,  but  also  on  the 
houses,  fences,  offices,  and  reclamations 
that  he  himself  has  created. 

In  addition  to  charging  exorbitant 
rents,  Captain  Boycott  compelled  the 
tenants  of  the  landlords  for  whom 
he  was  agent  to  work  for  him  on  his 
own  farm  at  his  own  terms,  and  he 
paid  men  one  shilling  and  sixpence 
(about  thirty-six  cents),  and  women  a 
shilling  (about  twenty-four  cents)  a 
day.  Eighteen  pence  a  day  is  about 
two  and  a  quarter  dollars  per  week. 
But  he  always  managed  to  fine  men  for 
violating  the  rules  of  the  estate,  so  that 
they  never  actually  receive  more  than 
a  dollar  and  seventy-five  cents  a  week, 
on  which  they  are  expected  to  sup- 
port a  large  family  and  '  find  them- 
selves.' 

"  These '  rules  of  the  estate '  are  a  code 
of  laws  made  by  the  landlords  them- 
selves, for  the  violation  of  which  they 
inflict  fines  at  their  own  pleasure.  For 
example,  Captain  Boycott  would  fine 
a  man  sixpence — one-third  of  his  day's 
wages — for  coming  five  minutes  late  in 
^the  morning;  sixpence  for  v/alking  on 
the  grass  instead  of  on  the  gravel;  six- 
pence for  putting  a  wheelbarrow  out 
of  its  place.  He  had  so  many  of  these 
arbitrary  rules  that  it  was  utterly  im- 
possible for  any  tenant  to  work  a  week 


without  violating  two  or  three  of 
them. 

"  Captain  Boycott  was  one  of  the 
most  brutal  and  foul-mouthed  ruffians 
in  the  West  of  Ireland.  He  never  ad- 
dressed a  poor  man  without  an  oath — 

without  calling  him  a  d  d  Mick. 

Captain  Boycott  himself  is  an  English- 
man. He  never  met  one  of  his  tenants 
without  compelling  him  to  stand  with 
:  his  hat  in  his  hand  if  he  passed  him  on 
i  the  road-side,  and  as  long  a3  he  talked 
with  him,  e^•en  if  it  was  raining.  This 
has  been  the  custom  for  generations  in 
,  the  West  of  Ireland;  but  the  Land 
I  League  has  abolished  that  degrading 
:  habit.  If  a  poor  man  went  to  his  office 
\  he  compelled  him  to  stand  as  far  oft"  as 
the  room  would  admit  of.    He  was  an 
Irish  Legree,  without  the  lash,  but  with 
the  equally  terrible  power  of  eviction, 
which  Gladstone  in  Parliament  pro- 
nounced to  be  equivalent  to  a  sentence 
of  starvation  in  the  West  of  Ireland. 

The  land  agitation  suddenly  aroused 
the  tenantr}'  to  a  sense  of  their  power, 
:  which  they  could  wield  without  violating 
any  law,  if  they  would  combine  and  act 
as  one  man.  The  first  use  of  this  power 
against  Boycott  was  made  when  he 
sent  last  summer  for  the  tenantry  ot  ihe 
estates  for  which  he  was  agent,  to  cut 
the  oats  on  his  own  farm.  He  expected 
them  to  work,  the  men  for  thirty-two 
cents  a  day  (and  feed  themselves),  and 
the  women  for  twenty-four  cents  a  day. 
They  asked  respectfully  that  he  should 
pay  the  ordinary  harvest  wages — 2S.  6d. 
for  men  and  is.  6d.  for  women.  He 
refused  with  the  most  brutal  insolence 
to  make  this  reasonable  advance.  The 
whole  neighborhood  declined  to  work 
for  him.    The  willful  old  fellow  swore 
that  he  would  not  be  dictated  to — he 
j  who  had  always  dictated  to  them.  So 
I  he  and  his  nephews  and  nieces  and 
I  three  servant-girls  and  herdsmen  and 
I  car-driver  went  down  to  the  fields  and 
1  began  to  reap  and  bind.    He  held  out 
I  three  hours,  but  could  not  stand  'it. 
:  He  was  heard  to  curse  Father  John 
O'Malley  as  the  cause  of  the  '  insub- 
i  ordination '  of  the  peasantry,  and  to 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATH.      •  79 


say  that  although  '  they  had  got  him 
now  he  would  be  even  with  them 
soon.'  Mrs.  Boycott  went  from  cabin 
to  cabin  that  night  to  coax  the  people 
to  come  and  work  for  her  husband  at 
their  own  very  moderate  terms.  They 
came.  Mind,  these  laborers  work  from 
ten  to  twelve  hours  a  day.  and  yet 
this  strike  to  get  sixty  cents  mstead  of 
thirty-two  cents  a  day — a  demand  to 
be  paid  only  five  cents  an  hour — was 
heralded  even  by  an  honest  English 
journalist  as  an  unwarrantable  interfer- 
ence with  the  relations  of  employer  and 
employed,  and  by  others  as  one  of  the 
lawless  and  treasonable  actions  of  the 
Land  League!  The  New- York  papers 
speak  of  Boycott  as  a  '  pleasant- 
spoken  man ' ;  but  in  the  County 
Mayo  he  is  known  as  a  bully. 

"  When  November  came  he  sent  for 
the  tenants.  His  day  of  vengeance 
had  dawned — he  thought  so;  but  it 
proved  to  be  his  day  of  doom.  The 
tenants  asked  a  moderate  reduction  of 
rents.  He  refused  to  abate  the  Shy- 
lock  rents  one  farthing ;  although  near- 
ly all  the  tenants  of  the  Earl  of  Erne 
had  been  supported  for  months  by  for- 
eign charity  and  although  the  Earl 
himself  had  not  given  a  shilling  for 
their  relief.  The  Earl  is  an  old  man, 
— it  is  said  in  his  dotage, — who  lives 
in  the  County  Fermanagh." 

Rep. — "  Could  the  tenants  have 
paid  their  rent  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  Some  of  them  could  have 
paid  it,  but  if  they  had  done  so  they 
would  have  been  at  the  mercy  of  the 
shop-keepers  and  the  gombeen  men. 
Remember,  1879-80  was  the  third 
bad  season.  During  the  first  two 
years,  the  peasantry,  after  paying 
their  rents,  managed  to  get  through 
the  summer  by  their  credit  at  the  shop- 
keepers, but  all  credit  was  stopped 
as  soon  as  it  was  known  that  the  third 
season  would  see  another  failure  of 
crops.  The  peasantry  then  borrowed 
money  from  the  gombeen  men  or 
money-lenders  and  the  pawnbrokers, 
to  pay  their  rents.  They  were  only  in 
arrears  one  year.    Whoever  goes  un- 


paid, the  landlord  insists  on  his  pound 
of  flesh  first.  Now,  some  of  these  tenants 
had  been  in  England  harvesting  and 
had,  earned  money  enough  to  pay  even 
Boycott's  rents,  but  if  they  had  paid 
them  they  could  not  have  paid  the 
gombeen  men  and  shop-keepers,  and 
they  would  have  been  prosecuted  by 
them.  So  they  refused  to  pay  the  rent 
if  no  abatement  was  made.  Boycott 
threatened  them  with  evictions,  but 
they  left  his  office  without  paying  the 
rent. 

"  Boycott  issued  the  eviction  papers, 
and  hired  a  process-server  and  got 
eighteen  constables  to  protect  him.  In 
Ireland,  a  constable  is  not  a  policeman 
but  a  soldier  armed  with  a  musket, 
buck-shot,  and  bayonet,  and  under 
military  drill  and  orders.  There  are 
nearly  twelve  tnousand  of  them  in  Ire- 
land. The  finest  cottages  and  houses 
in  the  rural  districts  of  Ireland  are  the 
head-quarters  of  these  Irish  mercenaries. 
This  process-server  served  three  writs 
on  the  women  in  three  different  cabins 
before  the  purpose  of  the  expedition 
was  known.  Note  my  expression — on 
the  women.  In  Ireland,  if  a  shop- 
keeper or  any  one  but  a  landlord  issues 
a  writ  for  debt,  it  must  be  served  on 
the  head  of  the  family,  but  if  the  land- 
lord is  the  creditor,  the  law  says — as 
the  landlords  make  the  laws — that  the 
writ  may  be  served  on  the  women,  or 
if  they  can't  be  found  or  shut  the  door 
in  the  officer's  face  it  may  be  nailed  on 
the  door,  and  recently,  I  see,  it  has 
been  decided  that  the  writ  may  be 
sent  by  mail.  When  this  process- 
server  reached  the  fourth  cabin,  the 
woman,  a  Mrs.  Fitzmorris,  told  the 
process-server  that  she  would  lose  her 
life  before  she  would  allow  him  to 
serve  a  process  on  her.  She  shouted 
and  raised  the  signals." 

Rep. — "  What  do  you  mean  bv 
that  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  In  some  parts  of  the  West 
of  Ireland  the  peasantry  have  a  secret 
code  of  signals.  By  waving  a  flag  (you 
may  call  it  petticoat  if  you  like)  of  a 
certain  color,  the  neighbors  come  to  a 


8o  4 


AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 


cabin  to  assist  the  signaling  party, 
who  thus  signifies  that  he  is  in  distress. 
If  I  remember  rightly,  the  red  flag 
means  that  the  process-server  has 
come.  'Jliese  signals  caused  all  the 
women  and  girls  in  the  neighborhood 
to  assemble." 

Rep. — "Didn't  the  men  come  ?" 

J.  R. — "  Such  of  them  as  had  re- 
turned from  England.  But  the  women 
wont  allow  the  men  to  resist  the  proc- 
ess-server because  they  are  sent  to  jail 
so  long  for  doing  so,  and,  besides,  these 
women  think  they  can  take  care  of  the 
process-server  themselves.  I  saw  one 
\/oman  near  Clare  Morris,  a  pregnant 
woman,  who  was  defending  the  hovel 
that  sheltered  her  little  family,  who 
had  a  bayonet  thrust  into  her  breast  by 
these  loyal  servants  of  a  woman, — the 
richest  woman  in  Europe, — tlie  '  royal 
lady '  who  gave  only  one  day's  income 
to  relieve  these  her  starving  subjects. 
Do  you  remember,  when  Haynau 
visited  Barclay  &  Perkins's  brewery,  in 
London,  about  1850,  when  the  workmen 
found  that  he  was  the  man  who  ordered 
Austrian  women  to  be  whipped  for 
political  offenses,  that  he  was  kicked 
out  of  the  brewery,  and  that  all  Eng- 
land applauded  ?  Is  it  worse  to  whip 
women  than  to  bayonet  them  ?  " 

Rep.—"  The  men  didn't  fight  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  No;  they  looked  on.  The 
women  gave  cheers  for  the  Earl  of 
Erne  (he  had  been  a  decent  landlord 
before  Boycott  was  his  agent),  and 
they  gave  cheers  for  the  constables 
(who  hate  this  work  as  a  rule),  and  they 
gave  groans  for  Boycott  and  the  proc- 
ess-server. Suddenly  they  threw  mud 
and  manure  and  stones  at  him,  and  he 
ran  off  with  the  crowd  of  women  after 
him — the  constables  vainly  trying  to 
protect  him  from  the  violence  of  the 
infuriated  women." 

Rep.—"  Why  didn't  they  fire  ?" 

J.  R. — "They  had  no  magistrate 
with  them  to  read  the  riot  act.  The 
process-server  was  knocked  down  sev- 
eral times.  There  were  a  couple  of 
hundred  women  and  girls  pursuing 
him,  and  they  never  halted  until  they 


reached  .  the  boundary  line  of  the 
parish. 

"  Boycott  was  furious.  He  went  to 
Ballinrobc  and  secured  a  force  of  one 
hundred  constables  to  protect  the  proc- 
ess-server next  day,  as  it  was  the  last 
day  on  which  these  writs  could  be 
issued  if  the  cases  were  to  be  brought 
before  the  next  session  of  the  court. 
Next  day  the  process-server  refused  to 
go,  and  nobody  could  be  hired  to  take 
his  place.  The  reason  of  his  refusal 
I  was  a  visit  from  a  woman  of  the  parish 
'  of  the  Neale  to  his  wife.  This  friend 
\  had  told  his  wife  that  the  women  had 
j  found  out  that  a  process-server  had  no 
legal  right  to  nail  his  writs  on  a  cabin 
door,  unless  it  was  closed  against  him, 
nor  to  take  in  a  constable  unless  he 
was  -resisted,  and  that  they  had  deter- 
mined to  leave  the  doors  partly  open 
and  not  to  fight  him  until  he  should 
enter,  '  and,  then,  every  woman  of 
them  '11  have  a  kettle  of  hot  water 
handy,  and  fling  it  in  his  face.'  Near 
Westport,  last  winter,  I  saw  several 
cabin  doors  covered  up  with  manure, 
and  near  Balla,  last  summer,  I  saw 
cabins  all  stoned  up  so  as  to  prevent 
the  process-server  from  nailing  the  writs 
on  them.  The  family  expected  a  visit 
from  the  process-server  in  the  morning 
— he  had  been  resisted  in  both  instances 
the  day  before — and  the  people  had 
slept  out  all  night  to  be  ready  for  a 
renewal  of  his  efforts  to  evict  them. 

"  '  Captain  '  Boycott  was  now  com- 
pletely bafl^ed,  and  he  was  wild  with  rage. 
Rewrote  a  letter  to  the  London  Times, 
in  which  he  said  that  his  fences  were  de- 
stroyed, the  gate  of  his  demesne  demol- 
ished, and  his  own  life  in  danger,  and 
tliat  he  was  thus  persecuted  because  he 
was  a  Protestant. 

"  Meanwhile,  the  people  at  the 
Neale  assembled.  Brass  bands  from 
Ballinrobe  brought  together  all  the 
people  of  the  parish.  There  is  a  priest 
there  greatly  beloved  by  his  people, — a 
man  of  resolute  character  and  highly 
educated, — and,  although  he  is  natu- 
rally conservative,  he  has  unbounded 
influence  over  every  member  of  his  con- 


A  A'  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATH. 


8i 


gregation,  from  the  fact  that  he  neither 
tolerates  outrages  by  his  parishioners  on 
landlords,  nor  outrages  on  them  by  the 
landlords.  He  addressed  the  meeting, 
praised  them  for  asserting  their  rights 
to  their  homes ;  but  urged  them,  if  the 
constables  should  come  again  in  force, 
to  offer  them  no  resistance.  It  is 
Father  John  O'Mallev. 

I  was  told  by  (it  would 

ruin  him  if  I  were  to  give  his  name) 
that,  after  Father  John  had  left,  he  told 
the  people  about  ray  prediction  of  the 
cftects  of  a  stnkc  against  landlords,  in 
my  Clare  Morris  speech,  and  advised 
them  to  try  it  on  Boycott  at  once, 
'llie  advice  was  taken.  The  men  ad- 
\  ised  Boycott's  herdsmen  and  car-driv- 
ers to  strike,  and  the  women  advised 
Boycott's  ser\ant-girls  to  strike,  and 
that  evening  every  one  of  them  left  his 
house. 

Next  morning,  when  Mrs.  Boycott 
Y\'ent  to  buy  bread,  the  shop-keeper 
told  her  that,  although  she  was  a  dacent 
woman,  and  they  all  liked  her^  yet  the 
people  couldn't  stand  that  '  baste  of  a 
husband  of  hers  any  longer,'  and  she 
really  couldn't  sell  them  any  more 
bread ! 

"  ITie  Boycotts  liad  to  send  to  Bal- 
linrobe  for  provisions.  They  would 
not  have  been  ostracized  by  the  shop- 
keepers there,  but  for  Boycott's  letter. 
Ever)'  statement  in  that  letter  was  a  lie. 
I  rode  past  Boycott's  estate  shortly  after 
it  was  published,  and  his  fences  and  gates 
were  in  perfect  order,  ancf  if  his  life  was 
in  danger,  it  must  have  been  in  danger 
from  the  armed  constables  who  were  pro- 
tecting his  cowardly  life  night  and  day. 
It  exasperated  the  people,  and  they  is- 
sueda  decree  of  social  excommunicarion 
against  him.  No  shop-keeper  in  Bal- 
linrobe  now  dared  to  sell  him  a  mouth- 
ful of  anything  to  eat,  nor  a  yard  of 
anything  to  wear." 

Rep. — "  If  the  shop-keeper  had  vent- 
ured to  defy  the  decree,  what  would 
have  become  of  him  ?  " 

J.  R. — He  would  have  been  ruined. 
Nobody  would  have  crossed  his  thresh- 
old.   Since  I  left  the  County  Mayo,  I 


I  heard  of  one  sho{>-keeper  so  rich  that 
he  thought  he  could  defy  the  peasantrj'. 
He  took  a  farm  from  which  a  poor 

I  tenant  had  been  e\-icted-  For  three 
months  nobody  entered  his  shop. 
Whether  this  stor)-  is  true  or  not, — I 
have  no  personal  knowledge  of  it, — it 
is  certain  that  this  has  been  done  in  the 
West  of  Ireland. 

'*  Boycott  v/as  isolated.  He  had  to 
take  care  of  his  own  cattle.  His  farm 
is  of  four  hundred  acres.  As  long  ago 
as  October  12,  iSSo,  I  v*Tote  to  the 
Inter-  Ocean  that  the  people  v/ere  *  de- 
termined to  drive  him  out  of  the  coun- 
t)','  and  you  see  they  have  done  it, 
and  that  he  admitted  in  New-Yoit 
that  no  one  could  resist  such  excom- 

!  munication." 

;      Rep. — You  call  it  sometimes  iso- 
I  lation,    sometimes  excommunicarion, 
and  sometimes  Bovcottins^.    How  did 
the  word  Boycotting  come  into  use  ?  " 

J.  R. — '•  It  was  invented  by  Father 
John  O'Malley  about  three  days  after 
the  decree  of  social  excommunication 
was  issued  against  Boycott-  Up  to 
that  time  it  had  been  called  sometimes 
moral  and  sometimes  social  excommu- 
nicarion when  ostracism  was  applied 
to  a  '  land-grabber,'  as  a  man  is  called 
who  takes  a  farm  from  which  a  tenant 
has  been  evicted.  I  was  dining  with 
Father  John,  at  the  Presbvtery  of  the 
Neale,  and  he  asked  mo  why  I  was  not 
eating. 

I  said,  'I'm  bothered  about  a  word.* 
I  "  '  What  is  it  ?  '  asked  Father  John. 
I  "  '  Well,'  I  said,  *  when  the  people 
j  ostracize  a  land-grabber  we  call  it  social 
I  excommunication,  but  we  ought  to 
j  have  an  entirely  different  word  to  sig- 
I  nify  ostracism  applied  to  a  landlord  or 
a  land-agent  like  Boycott.  Ostracism 
j  wont  do — the  i)easantr}-  would  not 
j  know  the  meaning  of  the  word — and  I 
,  can't  think  of  any  other. 

'  No,'  said  Father  John,  -  ostracism 
wouldn't  do.' 

"  He  looked  down,  tapped  his  big 
forehead,  and  said : 

•• '  How  would  it  do  to  call  it  to  Boy- 
cott him  ?  ' 


82 


AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 


"  I  was  delighted  and  said,  *  Tell  your 
people  to  call  it  Boycotting,  so  that 
when  the  reporters  come  down  from 
Dublin  and  London  they  will  hear  the 
word :  use  it  yourself  in  the  Castlebar 
Telegraph ;  I'm  going  to  Dublin  and 
will  ask  the  young  orators  of  the  Land 
League  to  give  it  that  name;  I  will 
use  it  in  my  correspondence,  and  be- 
tween us  we  will  make  it  as  famous  as 
the  similar  word  "  Lynching "  in  the 
United  States.'  Lynch  was  the  name 
of  a  Virginia  backwoods  'extra-judicial 
judge,'  you  knov/.  Father  John  and  I 
kept  our  compact ;  he  was  the  first  man 
who  uttered  the  word  and  I  the  first 
who  wrote  it.  But  Father  John  is  en- 
titled to  more  credit  than  the  mere 
christening  of  the  policy.  If  he  had  not 
had  so  great  an  influence  with  his  peo- 
ple, Boycott's  conduct  would  have — 
I  have  not  a  bit  of  doubt  of  it — so  ex- 
asperated the  people  that  he  would 
have  met  the  fate  of  Feerick  and  Lord 
Montmorris,  both  of  whom  were  killed 
within  three  miles  of  Boycott's  farm, 
and  both  of  them  vv^ithin  a  mile  of  con- 
stabulary stations.  By  his  firmness 
and  his  popularity  he  '  held  the  fort ' 
until  Boycott  quietly  sneaked  out  of 
the  parish,  and  this  surrender  inspired 
the  people  all  over  the  West  of  Ireland 
with  a  faith  in  the  policy  of  Boycotting 
that  they  had  never  had  before  and 
might  never  have  held.  To  be  per- 
fectly just,  Boycott  is  entitled  to  some 
credit  himself;  for  even  Father  John's 
influence  v/ould  have  been  pov.  crless, 
I  think — some  compromise  might  have 
been  made — if  Captain  Boycott  had 
not  been  such  an  insolent  tvrant,  and 
hated  by  every  man  and  woman  in  the 
neighborhood  v/ho  ever  had  any  deal- 
ings with  him." 

Rep. — "  Did  the  Earl  of  Erne  get 
his  rents  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  No.  He  had  been  popu- 
lar before  Boycott  became  his  agent, 
and  after  Boycott  was  Boy  (dotted — on 
the  very  next  evening — the  tenantry  of 
the  Earl  assembled,  every  man  of  them, 
and  sent  him  a  letter,  apologizing  for 
their  treatment  of  his  agent,  but  stating 


that  they  would  hold  no  further  com- 
munication with  him,  either  officially 
or  otherwise,  and  that  they  would 
never  pay  him  a  shilling,  but  that,  as 
soon  as  they  conveniently  could  do  so, 
they  would  pay  any  other  person  whom 
the  Earl  should  appoint  to  receive  the 
rent.  They  said  that  they  had  come 
to  this  resolution  because  they  were 
convinced  that  his  agent  had  been  prej- 
udicing his  lordship  against  them,  and 
that  for  their  own  protection  they  had 
detemiined  to  refuse  to  have  any  fur- 
ther dealings  with  him. 

"  '  The  jjiajority  of  these  people^  said 
Father  John, — I  am  now  reading  from 
a  letter  that  I  wrote  on  October  12, 
and  that  you  published  in  the  Inter- 
Ocea?i^ — '  these  te?ta?its  of  the  Ea?'I,  had 
beeii  supported for  nine  months p7'eviously 
on  charity.  They  got  jio  help  of  any 
kind  fro 771  the  la7idlord.  They  attrib- 
uted his  neglect  of  them  to  '  Captain  ' 
Boycott.  The  Earl  stood  by  his  agent, 
and  he  has  got  no  rent  yet. 

But  Boycott's  letter  to  the  London 
TiTues  had  a  great  result.  The  English 
Government  and  the  Irish  landlords 
were  paralyzed  by  this  new  policy. 
Although  the  London  Tizzies,  in  com- 
menting on  my  Leenane  speech,  sneer- 
ingly  said  that  the  Government  would 
'  know  how  to  deal  with  this  policy  of 
passive  resistance  with  which  they  were 
threatened,'  it  found  that  it  did  7iot 
know  what  to  do  about  it — because 
no  laws  could  force  any  man  to  deal 
with  a  shop-keeper  whom  he  disliked, 
nor  to  speak  to  a  man  whom  he  hated. 
The  blasphemous  Boycott's  suggestion 
1  that  he  was  persecuted  because  he  was 
'  a  Protestant,  gave  the  landlords  a  cue. 
They  thought  they  could  arouse  the 
old  feud  between  the  Protestants  and 
Catholics,  by  which  England  has  been 
enabled  to  divide  and  ruin  Ireland  for 
two  centuries.  So,  they  called  for  sub- 
scriptions to  organize  what  they  termed 
a  '  Relief  Expedition  ' — to  dig  Boy- 
cott's potatoes.  The  Earl  of  Erne 
anonymously  headed  the  subscription 
with  ;^5o.  Money  poured  in  from 
landlords.     Fifty  loafers   from  Fer-^ 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  RED TA TIT. 


83 


managh  were  hired — these  were  herald- 
ed as  champions  of  the  Protestant 
faith.  The  scheme  aroused  only  ridi- 
cule in  Mayo,  because  Mayo  is  the 
most  Catholic  county  in  Ireland,  and 
yet  it  elected  Rev.  Mr.  Neilson,  a  Prot- 
estant preacher  from  Belfast,  as  one 
of  its  two  representatives  in  Parlia- 
ment. Erne  owns  31,389  acres  in 
Fermanagh,  and  only  2184  in  Mayo. 

"  Seven  regiments  of  soldiers  were 
sent  to  protect  the  potato. diggers. 
Nobody  would  sell  them  anything  to 
eat.  'i'he  landlords  had  paid  these 
men's  expenses  and  their  wages.  Tney 
went  to  Boycott  and  asked  v/hat  they 
should  do  for  something  to  eat  ?  He 
said,  in  a  surly  tone,  that  he  supposed 
they  must  eat  some  of  the  potatoes 
they  were  digging.  You've  heard  of 
Irish  hospitality  ?  Boycott  invented 
a  new  variety.  lie  charged  these  men, 
his  '  rescuers,'  fourpence  a  stone  for 
all  the  potatoes  that  trxCy  ate.  He  in- 
curred the  hatred  of  the  troops  and  the 
constabulary  by  treating  them  with 
similar  hospitality. 

"It  was  published  that  it  cost  the 
British  Government  ;^5,ooo  sterling  to 
dig  £,^00  worth  of  potatoes,  but  I  see 
that  Captain  Boycott  says,  preserving 
the  same  proportion,  that  he  had  only 
jQz^o  sterling  worth  of  potatoes; 
and  that  it  cost  the  British  Govern- 
ment ;£^3,5oo  sterling  to  gather  them. 
In  fact  it  taught  the  people  of  the  West 
of  Ireland  that,  without  bloodshed  or 
outrage,  they  could  successfully  resist 
the  aggressions  of  the  landlord. 

"  So  far  from  Father  John  O'Malley 
encouraging  violence,  as  Boycott 
charges,  he  simply  sanctioned  the 
scheme  of  ostracism  which  is  now 
called  Boycottism,  in  order  to  secure 
the  rights  of  the  tenants,  and  prevent 
them  from  resorting  to  violence. 

"The  English  Government  has 
charged  the  expense  to  the  County 
Mayo, — punishing  every  one  alike, 
those  who,  in  its  opinion,  were  guilty 
and  those  who  were  innocent, — but  as 
the  landlords  will  exact  as  rent  every- 
thing inside  of  the  skin  of  the  potato  if 


the  British  Government  docs  not,  it 
makes  no  practical  difference  to  the 
people  whether  the  Earl  of  Erne's 
agent  or  John  Brigiit's  associates  vent 
their  Dick  I'urpin  spleen  on  the  poor 
tenantry.  If  it  costs  the  British  Gov- 
ernment ;£^3,5oo  to  dig  ;£^35o  of 
potatoes,  how  much  will  it  cost  it  to 
dig  all  the  potatoes  and  cut  down  all 
the  crops  belonging  to  landlords  in 
Ireland  next  harvest  if  the  Land 
League  advises  a  strike  ? 

Captain  Boycott  goes  on  to  say  that 
he  has  been  made  a  scai)e-goat  for  the 
uprising  against  the  agents  because  he 
was  more  prominent  than  the  others. 
Translated  into  plain  English,  this 
means  that  he  was  more  odious  than 
the  others,  because  he  was  the  greatest 
tyrant  in  the  West  of  Ireland,  with  the 
possible  exception  of  Trench,  tlic  agent 
for  Lansdowne,  and  Mr.  Flussey. 
'  No  matter  wliat  the  business  of  a 
peasant  with  Boycott  might  be,' — I 
am  quoting  the  words  of  a  gentlcmar, 
of  Ballinrobe  as  I  wrote  them  down  i-i 
short-hand  at  the  time, — 'the  poor 
man  was  sure  to  be  cursed  and  abused 
by  him.  He  did  not  treat  them  as 
human  beings  at  all :  he  so  exasperated 
them  by  his  brutal  tongue  and  conduct 
that  when  they  got  a  chance  they  just 
rose  against  him  as  one  man.  But,' 
he  added,  '  Boycott  is  well  tamed 
now ! ' 

"  I  see  that  Captain  Boycott  says 
that  the  tenants  have  paid  more  money 
to  their  leaders  than  their  rent  would 
cost.  The  Land  League  has  already 
reduced  the  rentals  of  Ireland,  as  I 
have  already  stated,  some  $15,000,000 
per  annum.  In  a  large  number  of 
cases,  it  has  already  brought  the  rental 
down  to  Griffith's  valuation,  whereas 
last  winter,  ^^  hen  I  was  in  the  West 
of  Ireland,  every  landlord  who  '  only ' 
charged  fifty  per  cent,  over  GriBith's  val- 
uation was  accounted  a  good  landlord. 
The  money  contributed  by  the  i)eoplc 
of  Ireland  to  the  support  of  the  Land 
League  docs  not  amount  to  probably 
more  than  one-thousandth  j^art  of  the 
reduction  made  through  the  iuiluencc 


84 


AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 


of  the  Land  League  in  the  rentals  of 
Ireland.  There  were  not  more  than 
half  a  dozen  men  paid  for  their  services 
by  the  Land  League — at  least  while  I 
was  in  Ireland — and  they  were  men  of 
education,  who  were  content  to  receive 
the  salaries  of  second-class  clerks  in 
Chicago.  There  is  not  one  of  them 
who  could  not  have  doubled  or  quadru- 
pled his  salary  by  returning  to  the 
business  in  which  he  was  formerly 
engaged  before  entering  the  service 
of  tiic  Land  League.  The  expenses 
of  the  Land  League  are  occasioned  by 
supporting  tenants  who  have  been 
arbitrarily  evicted  owmg  to  an  inability 
to  pay  rent  after  a  year  of  famine, 
during  six  months  of  which  they  were 
supported  by  the  credit  of  the  shop- 
keepers, and  during  the  other  six 
months  of  which  they  were  supported 
by  the  charity  of  America." 

Rep. — Captain  Boycott  says  that 
the  average  profits  of  the  landlord  at 
the  existing  rents  have  not  been  four  per 
cent,  of  the  value  of  the  land,  and  yet 
he  says  that  he  thinks  the  average 
abatement  of  rents  has  been  at  least 
seventeen  and  a  half  per  cent.,  and 
that  some  of  the  landlords  have  abated 
as  much  as  twenty-five  per  cent.  How 
do  you  reconcile  these  statements  ?" 

J.  R. — "  My  answer  is  that  Captain 
Boycott,  himself,  was  charging  as  rent 
more  than  any  American  farmer  would 
give  for  the  fee  simple  to  the  soil,  and 
that  when  he  says  that  the  profits  have 
been  four  per  cent,  on  the  value  of  the 
land,  he  ingeniously  remembers  to  for- 
get that  ninety-nine-hundredths  of  the 
renting  value  of  the  land  was  created 
by  the  tenants  by  their  own  labor,  at 
tlicir  own  sole  expense.  For  example, 
in  this  very  parish  of  Xeale,  the  land  is 
mostly  lock  and  the  thinnest  of  thin 
soil,  which  can  only  be  cultivated  by 
incessant  mianuring  and  by  spade  till- 
age. Such  land  in  Illinois  could  not 
be  given  away. 

*•  The  Earl  of  Enie,  and  other  land- 
lords for  v.  hom  Boycott  was  agent,  never 
spent  any  money  on  the  improvement 
of  their  estates.    They  compelled  their 


tenants  to  make  all  the  improvements 
I  themselves,  and  under  Boycott's  man- 
,  agement,  as  fast  as  they  created  what 
j  he  calls  the  'value'  of  the  lands,  the 
rents  were  raised.    The  lands,  of  the 
I  Earl  of  Erne,  as  nature  made  them, 
i  were  not  worth  a  shilling  an  acre,  and 
I  the  exorbitant  rents  that  he  was  com- 
I  pelling  the  tenants  to  pay  for  them  were 
I  a  tax  on  their  own  industry.  The 
j  best  answer  to  Boycott's  statement  that 
I  he  had  never  any  trouble  with  his 
1  neighbors  before  Father  John  0']Mal- 
,  ley's  speech,  is  the  fact  that  he  was 
obliged  to  be  attended  by  two  consta- 
bles for  a  long  time  before  that  date, 
and  that  after  one  of  the  rises  of 
rent  he  speaks  of  he  was  very  glad  to 
escape  with  his  life.  I  don't  know  any 
communitv  in  the  Western  States  where 
he  would  not  have  been  lynched  years 
ago  if  he  had  been  guilty  of  one-tenth 
part  of  the   insolence   and  tyranny 
which  were  reported  to  me  about  him 
by  his   own  tenants   in  the  County 
Mayo;  and  yet  the  people  in  that 
county  would  die  for  any  decent  land- 
lord.    For  example,  while  Boycott 
dare   not   return   there,  while  Lord 
Sligo  dare  not  live  there,  while  Oran- 
more  and  Browne  does  not  dare  to 
live  there,  Thomas  Tyghe  and  one  or 
two  landlords  who  Hve  betw'een  Clare 
Morris  and  Boycott's  house,  a  distance 
of  less  than  ten  miles,  could  raise  a 
thousand  men  to  protect  them.  They 
have  no  need  whatever  of  police  pro- 
tection, while  Rourke,  another  land- 
I  agent  within  three  miles  of  Boycott's 
I  place,  is  obliged  to  go  around  with 
I  two  constables  guarding  him  whenever 
'  he  leaves   his   home,   and  Feerick, 
another  land-agent  who  imitated  Boy- 
cott, was  killed  last  spring  within  three 
miles  of  Captain  Boycott's  house.  That 
part  of  the  county  is  inhabited  by 
Fenians,  and,  therefore,  is  not  a  safe 
country  for  a  tyrant  to  live  in.  Yet 
nothing  can  exceed  the  loyalty  and 
•  devotion  of  the  Irish  peasantry  to  any 
landlord  who  treats  them  decently." 

Rep. — "  I  notice  that  Captain  Boy- 
cott, says  that  he  is  in  favor  of  such  a 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  RED  PATH.  85 


revision  of  the  land  Iciws  as  will  secure 
to  the  tenant  the  value  of  his  perma- 
nent improvements." 

J.  R. — "  Boycott  himself,  ever  since 
he  was  an  agent  in  the  West  of  Ireland, 
has  taxed  his  tenantry  to  the  full  value 
of  all  the  improvements  they  have 
made  on  them,  and  he  has  persistently 
opposed,  as  communism,  any  attempt 
to  vest  in  the  tenant  the  value  of  the 
improvement  he  has  made.  This 
declaration  of  Boycott  is  one  of  the 
strongest  proofs  that  I  have  met  of 
the  beneficent  influence  of  the  Land 
League." 

Rep. — "  Boycott  further  says  in  the 
New- York  HeraliVs  interview,  that  '  if 
the  land  bill  of  Gladstone  should  include 
the  three  F's,  it  would  not  materially 
improve  the  condition  of  the  mass  of  the 
Irish  people,  because  if  they  had  the 
land  for  nothing  it  would  not  support 
them,  as  it  is  the  sole  ambition  of  an 
Irishman  to  get  a  portion  of  the  land, 
or  even  a  cow-house,  as  a  homestead ; 
that  in  mountain  districts  and  on  the 
western  sea-board  there  are  large  popu- 
lations gathered  together  in  villages, 
composed  of  families  having  houses 
and  from  three  to  five  acres  of  land, 
mostly  of  inferior  quality,  and  they  are 
all  the  time  complaining  that  from  the 
produce  of  these  patches  they  are  un- 
able to  support  themselves.  Now,  how 
can  a  man  reasonably  expect,'  he  asks, 
*  to  feed  and  clothe  a  wife,  himself,  and, 
perchance,  half  a  dozen  children  on 
the  produce  of  three,  four,  or  even  half 
a  dozen  acres  ?  The  fact  is  that  all  the 
trouble  in  Ireland  is  caused  by  the  in- 
sane desire  of  the  people  to  farm  land 
at  all  hazards.  The  demand  is  greater 
than  the  supply,  and  that  is  all  about 
it.'  So  says  Captain  Boycott ;  what 
say  you,  Mr.  Redpath,  to  that  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  English  writers,  statisticians, 
and  agricultural  and  political  econo- 
mists, have  demonstrated  that  Ireland 
can  support,  with  comfort,  at  least  fif- 
teen millions  of  people,  while  the  pop- 
ulation of  Ireland  to-day  is,  probably, 
not  more  than  five  millions.  The 
County  Mayo,  for  example,  could  sup- 


port, in  comfort,  probably  five  times 
its  present  population.  But  it  cannot 
support  the  present  population,  in  com- 
fort, when  all  the  good  land  in  the 
county — nine-tenths  of  the  good  land 
— is  held  by  men  like  Lord  Lucan 
and  agents  like  Captain  Boycott  (by 
the  by,  his  title  of  captain  is  a  fraud; 
he  is  not  a  captain) ;  by  men  who 
take  all  the  good  land  as  grazing  farms 
and  throw  the  poor  people  into  bogs 
and  barren  mountain-sides.  Remem- 
bui  that  all  of  these  good  lands  were 
reclaimed  from  sterility  by  the  people 
themselves,  and  that  when  the  famine 
of  1847  came  they  were  driven  from 
them,  either  into  the  grave  or  the  poor- 
house,  or  into  exile,  when  they  failed  to 
pay  a  single  year's  rent.  \Vhat  Boy- 
cott calls  the  insane  desire  of  the  peo- 
ple to  farm  is  simply  the  instinct  of 
self-preservation,  because  in  the  West 
of  Ireland  there  are  no  manufactures 
and  no  industries,  and  no  means  by 
which  the  people  can  live,  and  it 
should  be  borne  in  mind  that  the  man- 
ufactures of  Ireland  were  prohibited 
by  the  British  legislature  for  genera- 
tions, and  that  since  the  repeal  of  these 
laws  by  the  triumph  of  Catholic  eman- 
cipation, when  any  companies  under- 
take to  carry  on  a  manufactory  in  Ire- 
land, outside  of  Belfast  or  the  Protest- 
ant counties  of  Ulster,  which  are  a  part 
of  the '  English  garrison,'  a  combination 
of  British  manufacturers  ruin  them. 
That  is  the  reason  why  I  am  urging 
the  Irish  in  America  to  Boycott  all 
British  manufactures,  and  especially 
Irish  linen,  because  these  manufact- 
urers, British  and  '  West  Britons,'  are 
the  bitterest  enemies  of  the  Irish  peo- 
ple, and  leave  them  the  land  as  their 
§ole  resource  ;  while,  at  the  same  time, 
they  encourage  the  landlords  to  confis- 
cate without  compensation  all  the  im- 
provements t)f  this  wretched  peasantry, 
and  to  dri\e  them  from  the  firrms. 
Ireland  is  too  small  a  country  to  sup- 
port three  sets  of  feeders — vampires, 
namely,  the  landlords;  leeches,  namely, 
the  land-agents ;  and  the  toilers,  namely, 
the  common  people." 


86 


AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 


Rep. — "  Boycott  was  asked  by  the 
New- York  Herald  reporter  '  whether 
the  land  laws  of  Ireland  will,  in  all  im- 
portant points,  compare  unfavorably 
with  those  in  France,  in  England,  aiid 
other  countries,  as  affecting  the  interest 
of  the  tenant,'  and  he  answered,  'cer- 
tainly not;  that  the  Irish  tenant  enjoys 
a  greater  freedom  in  dealing  with  his 
land  than  does  his  brother  farmer  in 
England ;  that,  as  a  rule,  no  yearly  ten- 
ant in  Ireland  is  bound  down  as  to  how 
he  shall  crop  and  dispose  of  the  prod- 
ucts of  his  land,  and  that  in  England 
there  is  a  hard  and  fast  rule  as  to  the 
routine  of  cropping,  and  what  produce 
may  be  sold.'  What  are  your  views  on 
this  subject,  Mr.  Redpath  ?  " 

J.  R. — "The  system  of  land  tenure  in 
the  Protestant  counties  of  Ireland  and  in 
England  and  Scotland  is  radically  differ- 
ent from  the  system  of  land  tenure  in 
the  West  of  Ireland.  There  is  no  grave 
injustice  in  an  English  landlord  evict- 
ing his  tenant  when  he  is  unable  to 
pay  his  rent,  because  the  landlord  built 
the  farm-hou^je  and  the  houses  of  the 
farm  laborers,  the  barns,  stables,  fences, 
and,  as  a  rule,  at  his  own  expense  sub- 
soiled  and  reclaimed  the  land,  or  else 
made  an  allowance  to  the  tenant  for  so 
doing.  Properly  speaking,  there  are 
no  peasantry  in  England.  The  farm- 
ers are  capitalists,  and  employ  laborers, 
who  are  the  most  degraded  class  of 
workingmen  in  all  Europe,  excepting, 
possibly,  the  serfs  of  Russia  before  their 
emancipation. 

"  The  English  and  Scotch  landlords 
live  on  their  estates,  and  have  a  per- 
sonal interest  in  their  tenants,  and,  as  a 
rule, they  are  indulgent  to  them;  where- 
as most  of  the  Irish  landlords  are  either 
English  absentees,  or  they  live  in 
remote  parts  of  Ireland  and  know' 
nothing  whatever  about  the  condition 
of  thtir  tenantry,  while  the  land-agents 
are  paid  a  percentage  of  the  rents  which 
they  collect,  and  consequently  have 
a  selfish  interest  in  squeezing  the  last 
penny  from  them.  There  is  no  paral- 
lel between  the  land  system  of  Ireland 
and  the  rest  of  Europe  to-day.  Even 


the  late  Russian  serfs  are  infinitely 
better  off  than  the  peasantry  of  Ireland 
under  Queen  Victoria.  The  best  proof 
that  the  misery  of  Ireland  is  caused  by 
the  land-tenure  system  is  shown  by  the 
fact  that  since  Hardenbcrg  and  Stein 
abolished  the  feudal  system  of  land 
tenure  in  Germany, — and  the  same 
may  be  said  of  France, — the  peasantry 
of  those  countries  are  now  tlie  most 
prosperous  working  people  in  E^urope, 
whereas  formerly  they  were  as  wretched 
as  the  Irish.  Most  of  the  erroneous  and 
unjust  judgments  passed  by  the  Ameri- 
can press  on  the  Irish  Land  League 
movement  come  from  the  belit.'f 
that  the  Irish  land  system  resembles 
the  land  system  of  America,  Eng- 
land, and  other  civilized  counrric.;, 
whereas  it  is  feudalism  stripped  of  all 
the  features  that  rendered  feudalism 
tolerable.  It  represents  the  most 
grasping  form  of  the  commercial 
spirit.  It  recognizes  no  duty  whatever 
on  the  part  of  the  landlord.  Many  of 
the  rents  were  so  high  that  if  the  little 
holding  raised  a  big  crop  of  potatoes, 
and  they  should  be  sold  at  the  highest 
market  price,  the  amount  obtained 
would  not  pay  the  rent." 

Rep. — "Then  how  is  the  rent  paid  ?" 

J.  R. — The  poor  men  have  to 
leave 'their  wives  early  in  the  spring 
and  work  all  summer  in  England  in 
order  to  make  money  enough  to  pay 
the  landlords.  Boycott  conveniently 
forgot  to  say  that  those  very  tenants 
who  Boycotted  him  were  supported  for 
nearly  nine  months  last  year  by  Ameri- 
can charity." 

Rep. — "  Captain  Boycott  says  that 
the  only  remedy  for  the.  Irish  trouble 
is  emigration.  What  do  you  say  about 
that  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  I  think  he  is  right,  and 
more  than  that,  he  is  honest,  for  once, 
because  he  has  set  the  example  him- 
self. Ireland  will  be  prosperous  just 
as  soon  as  all  the  landlords  and  all  the 
agents  are  forced  to  emigrate,  and  not 
till  then. 

"  Captain  Boycott's  other  plan  for  the 
regeneration  of  Ireland  is  the  intrc- 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  RED  PATH. 


87 


duction  of  outside  capital  to  carry  on 
manufacturing  industries.  He  says 
that  there  is  no  reason  why  Ireland 
should  not  have  her  own  manufact- 
ories for  glass,  wool,  and  many  other 
articles  of  domestic  consumption.  He 
attributes  the  fact  that  there  are  no 
such  manufactories  to  the  faults  of  the 
people,  themselves ;  because,  at  the 
present  time,  no  capitalist  could  be 
found  to  invest  money  in  its  disaffected 
condition.  Why  are  the  people  dis- 
affected ?  Landlordism  is  the  cause  of 
it,  and  English  hatred  of  the  Irish. 
The  Irish  who  come  to  America  fill  our 
manufactories,  and  yet  while  they  are 
well  paid  here — paid  double  what 
they  would  ever  have  expected  to  re- 
ceive there — our  manufactories  flourish. 
Ireland  has  coal-beds,  marble  quarries, 
and  vast  mineral  resources,  but  it  has 
been  utterly  impossible  for  any  capital- 
ists to  work  them,  owing  to  the  exorbi- 
tant exactions  of  the  landlords.  Irish 
absentee  landlordism  blights  every  in- 
dustry as  well  as  the  country  itself." 

Rep. — "  Captain  Boycott  says  that 
he  considers  that  the  constabuL'.ry  is 
thoroughly,  reliable,  and  that  the  Irish 
element  in  the  British  army  would 
never  betray  their  trust  in  the  event  of 
a  rising  of  the  people.  Do  you  think 
so?" 

J.  R.— "  Yes,  I  do  !  The  constabu- 
lary are  not  policemen.  They  are 
armed  and  drilled  soldiers  ;  armed  with 
muskets,  buck-shot,  and  bayonets,  and 
under  military  disci[:linc,  and  whatever 
their  sympathies  may  be,  they  are 
obliged  to  obey  orders.  Last  year  and 
this  year,  they  have  again  and  again 
bayoneted  and  shot  down  women,  and 
when  soldiers  do  that,  they  can  be  '  im- 
plicitly relied  on  '  by  any  form  of  des- 
potism. I,  myself,  saw  a  woman  into 
whose  breast  a  constable  ran  a  bayonet 
for  seeking  to  defend  her  own  home. 
As  far  as  the  regular  army  goes,  of 
course,  they  are  trustworthy,  because 
the  English  Government  took  special 
care  to  eliminate  all  Irish  soldiers  from 
the  regiments  sent  into  Ireland.  They 
are  all  English  and  Scotch." 


Rep. — "  Captain  Boycott  says  that 
Parnell  is  a  very  good  leading  man,  but 
denies  that  his  programme  has  the  ad- 
herence of  the  people  at  large ;  that 
the  masses  are  with  him,  it  is  true,  but 
that  the  intellect  of  the  country  is 
against  him.    How  is  that " 

J.  R. — "  I  have  always  supposed 
that  the  masses  of  the  people  meant 
the  people  at  large,  and  as  for  the  '  in- 
tellect '  of  the  country  being  against 
him,  I  never  read  in  history  of  a  single 
instance  in  which  the  owners  of  des- 
potic power  were  not  against  the  masses 
of  the  people." 

Rep. — Why  did  the  people  cheer 
the  constabulary,  and  yet  maltreat  the 
process-server  ?  Were  they  not  equally 
guilty  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  Because  the  people  regard 
the  constables  as  only  doing  their  duty, 
hovvcvcr  degrading  that  duty  may  be, 
while  they  execrate  the  process-servers 
because  they  are  volunteers — they  are 
not  obliged  by  law  to  s^rve  ejectment 
notices ;  tliey  are  only  obliged  to  serve 
civil  decrees." 

Rep.  —  What  proportion  of  the 
landlords  in  Mayo  and  Galway  are 
absentees  ?  " 

J.  R._«  Father  John  O'Malley  told 
me  that  there  are  more  absentees  in 
Mayo  than  in  Galway.  '  In  Galway,'* 
he  said,  '  I  should  say  that  one-fourth 
are  absentees ;  but  in  Mayo,  fully  one- 
half,  on  the  average.  Dillon,  Sligo, 
Lucan,  Erne,  Cooper,  Farmer,  Farroll, 
Jameson,  Kilmaine,  Dc  Clifford,  and 
several  others  —  all  large  landlords, 
owners  of  two-thirds  of  the  County 
Mayo — are  absentees.  Nearly  one- 
half  of  Galway  is  owned  by  absentees. 
Many  of  them  never  visit  their  estates 
at  all,  and  have  never  seen  them.  In 
the  parish  of  the  Neale  (where  Boycott 
lived),  there  is  not  now,  and  there  has 
not  been  for  the  last  half-century,  a 
single  resident  landlord.' 

"  1  asked  Father  John  whether  this 


*  These  quotations  are  from  short-hand 
notes  taken  at  the  time,  and  subsequently  re- 
vised by  the  priest. 


88  AN  EXILE  OF  ERIN. 


absenteeism  was  owing  to  the  reason 
assigned  by  the  English  press,  that 
agrarian  outrages  made  it  impossible 
for  the  landlords  to  live  on  their  estates. 
The  priest  said  : 

" '  For  the  last  twenty-five  years 
there  has  not  been  a  single  agrarian 
assassination,  or  an  attempt  at  one,  in 
this  parish,  either  on  landlords  or  their 
agents.  Some  of  these  landlords  come 
over  once  in  a  while,  for  a  few  days, 
and  never  one  of  them  has  been,  or 
pretended  to  be,  in  any  danger.'  " 

Rep. — What  is  the  condition  of  the 
peasantry  of  Ireland  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  I  never  yet  saw  a  single 
cajjin  t  in  the  Southern  States  so 
wretched ;  I  never  met  a  slave  so 
badly  dressed  ;  I  never  saw  a  slave  so 
poorly  fed — as  three  millions  of  the  in- 
dustrious people  of  Ireland  are  lodged, 
clothed,  and  fed  to-day.  Southern 
slavery,  with  the  single  exception, — and 
iJwt  was  a  very  important  exception, — 
of  the  right  to  sell  vested  in  the  slave- 
holder, was  a  system,  infernal  as  it 
was,  A^astly  superior  to  the  system  of 
Jrish  tenantry  at  this  very  hour.  But 
J  have  ray  notes  of  a  conversation  with 
Pathcr  John  O'Malley,  in  Loycott's 
own  parish,  and  it  is  specific  in  its  de- 
tails. I  will  read  them,  only  omitting 
my  preliminary  questions : 

'  As  ,to  .tlieir  indolence,'  said  Father 
John,  "  from  ray  own  experience  of 
them,  and  from  what  I  have  heard 
from  so  many  high  authorities  about 
the  peaF.antry  in  other  countries,  I 
consider  the  Irish  peasantry  as  the 
most  industrious  and  hard-working 
race  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  What 
do  you  think  now  that  you  have  seen 
them  at  home  ?  * 

'  " '  With  the  sole  .exception  of  the 
Chinese,'  I  answered,  *  I  think  they 
are  not  excelled  in  industry  by  any 
race  in  America,  and  that  they  are  only 
equaled  by  the  Germans.' 

"  '  Not  only  all  over  the  West,'  con- 
tinued Father  John,  '  does  the  head 
of  the  family  himself  work,  and  his 
grown  boys,  and  all  the  women,  but 
even  the  youngest  females,  .as  soon  as 


they  are  able  to  do  any  work — not 
only  in  the  house,  but  hard  work  in 

the  fields,  as  you  have  seen  every- 
where. They  are  so  industrious  in 
their  habits,  and  so  soon  are  they  set 
to  work  as  children,  that  unless  I  make 
it  a  point  to  secure  the  attendance  of 
the  children  at  school  between  the 
ages  of  five  and  eleven,  I  might  bid 
farewell  to  all  hopes  of  teaching  them 
at  all.  If  the  people  did  not  work  as 
incessantly  as  they  do,  how  could  they 
procure  even  the  commonest  suste- 
nance for  their  large  famifies  after  pay- 
ing such  exorbitant  rents  and  taxes  ? 
From  my  experience  and  observation, 
all  over  this  West  of  Ireland  (and  I 
have  had  a  large  experience,  and  seen 
most  of  it  thoroughly),  I  can  truly  say  • 
that,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hun- 
dred, whenever  you  see  any  Irish  peas- 
ant not  at  work  it  is  simply  because 
he  can  find  nothing  to  do. 

"  *  Now,  then,  as  to  his  improvi- 
dence,' continued  Father  John,  '  why, 
Mr.  Redpath,  the  very  idea  of  charg- 
ing these  struggling  peasants  of 
Ireland  with  improvidence  is  cruel 
sarcasm.  Let  me  tell  you  how  the 
ordinary  peasant  lives.  But,  after  all, 
I  need  not  tell  you  how  he  Hves — you 
have  seen  enough  of  it;  but  possibly 
you  have  had  no  opportunity  to  see 
how  they  are  fed  ?  ' 

" '  No,  sir.' 

" '  Well,'  said  the  priest,  '  let  me 
give  you  the  daily  bill  of  fare  of  these 
peasant  families :  For  breakfast,  pota- 
toes. If  they  are  pretty  comfortable, 
they  have  a  little  milk  and  butter  with 
it.  But,  in  the  great  majority  of  cases, 
they  have  nothing  but  the  potatoes,  or 
possibly  a-  salt  herring.  The  dinner 
and  the  supper  are  only  a  repetition  of 
the  breakfast.  That  is  their  bill  of 
fare  all  the  year  round  excepting  at 
Easter  and  Christmas,  when  even  the 
poorest  try  hard  to  get  a  few  pounds 
of  meat — generally  "American  meat." 

" '  You  have  seen  everywhere  that 
the  clothing  of  the  peasantry  is  made 
by  themselves  from  the  wool.  They 
shear  it,  spin  it,  get  it  woven  and  dyed 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATII. 


89 


themselves  into  flannel  and  frieze. 
"  Frieze  ?  "  Frieze  is  home-made  cloth. 
How  can  any  people  be  more  prov- 
ident than  people  who  live  on  the 
meanest  diet  that  can  support  life,  and 
who  not  only  make  their  own  clothing 
but  make  and  dye  the  cloth  itself?  ' 

"  Would  you  like  some  more  ?  " 

Rep.—"  Go  on." 

J.  R. — "  Well,  let  me  read  the  rest 
of  my  report : 

" '  Well,  Father  John-,  now  as  to 
intemperance — I  am  not  asking  for  my 
own  information,  for  I  know  the  truth 
about  it — how  do  you  answer  the  state- 
ment that  in  Ireland,  with  all  its  pov- 
erty, there  is  so  much  consumption  of 
alcoholic  drinks  ?  '  " 

"  '  In  the  first  place,'  said  Father 
John,  '  the  amount  consumed  in  Ire- 
land is  not  all  drank  by  the  peasantry, 
which  the  argument  assumes.  You 
must  take  away,  in  the  first  place,  all 
that  is  consumed  by  the  upper  and 
middle  classes,  by  the  Government 
officials,  and  in  strictl}^  temperate  fam- 
ilies— for  drinking  in  Ireland,  as  in 
England,  is  a  universal  social  usage — 
and  you  must  remember  that  the  ex- 
pensive wines  and  liquors  .are  con- 
sumed by  these  classes.  The  poorer 
classes  never  drink  any  liquors  that 
are  costly.  You  must  also  deduct 
what  is  consumed  by  the  working 
classes — by  all  classes — in  the  towns 
and  cities,  because  no  complaint  has 
ever  been  made  by  Irish  reformers 
about  their  poverty  being  specially 
caused  by  bad  laws.  They  may  be 
affected  by  an  expensive  form  of  gov- 
ernment causing  heavy  taxes — but  so 
are  the  laboring  classes  of  Elngland; 
and  the  Irish  worker  of  the  cities  has 
also  the  additional  wrong  done  him 
that  English  legislation  destroyed  Irish 
manufactures,  while  the  land  laws,  by 
driving  out  the  rural  population,  ruined 
all  the  minor  home  industries.  But  to 
keep  strictly  to  the  point,  it  is  against 
the  peasantry  that  this  charge  is  made 
— for  they  are  the  only  class  whose 
grievances  at  this  time  are  specifically 
championed.    Now  I  assert,  from  my 


personal  knowledge  and  from  the  con- 
curring testimony  of  hundreds  of 
priests' in  different  parts  of  Ireland — as 
well  as  by  other  trustworthy  evidence 
— that,  excepting  on  very  rare  occa- 
sions, such  as  a  fair-di'v,  the  Irish 
peasant  rarely  drinks  at  all.  On  fair- 
days  he  does  drink,  because  it  is  the 
custom  of  the  country  for  the  seller  to 
treat  the  buyer  to  a  drink  after  the  sale 
of  sheep  or  a  cow.  The  charge  that 
the  Irish  peasant  is  a  constant  drinker 
is  a  gross  and  cruel  calumny.  Of  ' 
course,  there  are  a  few  rash,  foolish 
creatures  who  are  an  exception,  but  as 
a  rule,  the  Irish  peasant  is  temperate 
both  from  necessity  and  from  religious 
influences.  Drunkenness  is  exceed- 
ingly rare  in  rural  Ireland.'  " 

Rep. — "  I  see  that  Boycott  says  he 
came  to  America  only  on  a  visit,  and 
he  is  going  down  to  Virginia  to  sec  a 
friend  in  Amelia  Countv." 

J.  R._"Yes:  'birds  of  a  feather.'  I 
was  asked  by  Father  Corbett,  of  Clare 
Morris,  if  I  could  not  have  an  absen- 
tee Irish  landlord  in  Amelia  County, 
Virginia,  Boycotted!  Little  did  I 
ever  think  that  Boycott  himself  would 
go  there !  Father  James  igave  me 
seven  writs  of  ejectment  that  this  Irish- 
Virginian  had  issued  against  some  of 
the  most  famished  peasants  near  Clare 
Morris.  I  gave  them  to  Major  Con- 
yngham,  editor  of  the  New-York 
Tablet.  They  are  brought  by  '  Mur- 
ray Magregor  Blacker,  of  Haw  Branch, 
Amelia  Court  House,  Virginia,  U.  S. 
A.,  against  Thomas  Mullce,  of  Kilcol- 
man,  for  ^6  6s.  rent ;  against  Michael 
Prendcrgast,  of  Kilcolman,  for  ^7  i os. ; 
against  Patrick  Nevin,  of  Cuilbeg,  for 
^4  ICS.;  against  Patrick  Clarke,  of 
Cuilbeg,  for  ^^3;  against  Martin  Mud- 
lany,  of  Lisnaborla,  for  jC^\2  los. ; 
against  Michael  Flannigan,  of  Boher- 
diiff,  for  I  OS.,  and  against  Thomas 
Mullee,  of  Boherduff.  for  los.' 

This  man.  Blacker,  never  gave  a 
shilling  for  the  relief  of  these  tenants, 
who  were  kept  out  of  their  graves  by  for- 
eign charity.  Their  lands  are  wretched 
holdings,  and  the  rents  are  extortion- 


90     IRISH  lANDLORDS  AND  IRISH  I  AND  LEAGUERS. 


ate,  but  '  Captain  '  Boycott's  friend, 
Mr.  Blacker,  is  as  pitiless  as  his  guest. 
Since  the  yellow  fever  met  the  'cholera 
at  New  Orleans  a  few  years  since, 


there  has  never  been  such  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  law  that  like  seeks  like,  as 
the  meeting  of  Boycott  and  Blacker 
will  be !  " 


XIV. 

IRISH  LANDLORDS  AND  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUERS. 

[The  Omaha  (Nebraska)  Herald  of  February  15  says:  "James  Redpath,  journalist  and  the 
advocate  of  liberty,  lectured  at  the  Academy  of  Music  last  night  under  the  auspices  of  the  Irish 
Land  League.  The  house  was  fdled  in  spite  of  inclement  weather  with  a  most  intelligent  and 
eager  audience.  Mayor  Chase  presided  and  introduced  the  speaker,  who  was  enthusiastically 
received.  He  is  a  forcible  and  magnetic  speaker.  A  brief  or  hasty  outline  of  his  speech,  which 
continued  nearly  three  hours,  can  give  but  little  idea  of  the  graphic  pictures  that  Mr.  Redpath 
drew  of  Irish  life,  purity,  and  fortitude,  as  he  had  seen  it  last  year.  At  the  close  of  the  speech, 
Mr,  John  Rush  read  a  series  of  resolutions  which  were  adopted,  thanking  Mr.  Redpath,  whom 
they  termed  'the  Lafayette  of  Irish  Land  Reform.'  Rousing  cheers  were  given  for  Parnell, 
I\e'i]:ath,  and  Davitt.  A  dispatch  was  read  from  the  Irish-American  members  of  the  Senate 
and  House  of  Representatives  of  the  State,  greeting  and  welcoming  Mr.  Redpath  to  Nebraska. 
In  order  to  obtain  his  views  more  fully,  a  Herald  reporter  interviewed  Mr.  Redpath  yesterday 
afternoon  and  was  accorded  a  free  expression  from  that  gentleman  :  "] 


REPORTER.— "What,    in  your 
opinion,  Avill  be  the  result  of  the 
present  agitation  in  Ireland  ?  " 

Mr.  Redpath. — "The  establishment 
of  peasant  proprietorship.  Of  course  I 
do  not  expect  that  this  result  will  be 
reached  2^  once.  The  landed  proprie- 
tors will  make  a  desperate  struggle — 
first  to  resist  any  change  in  the  present 
relations  of  landlord  and  tenant ;  then 
to  make  as  few  changes  as  possible ; 
then  to  defeat  peasant  proprietorship. 
The  struggle  may  last  two  or  three 
years,  but  if  the  Irish  peasantry  stand 
linn,  and  are  not  provoked  into  insur- 
rection, I  have  no  doubt  that,  first,  the 
London  companies  and  all  corporations 
will  be  forced  by  Parliament  to  sell; 
then  that  the  absentees  will  have  to 
let  go  their  grip  of  the  soil — and  then 
the  rest  will  be  easy.  There  are  only 
eight  thousand  landlords  of  all  grades 
in  Ireland,  including  owners  of  one 
acre,  and  also  I  believe  including  the 
holders  of  long  leases ;  but  two  thou- 
sand out  of  these  eight  thousand  hold 
more  land  than  all  the  rest  put  to- 
gether, and  three  thousand  out  of  the 
eight  thousand  are  absentees.  They 
draw — these    absentees — $60,000,000 


every  year  from  Ireland,  and  do  abso- 
lutely no  service  in  return  either  to 
their  tenants  or  to  the  country — except 
to  slander  the  Irish  people  throughout 
the  world,  and  to  call  for  coercion 
laws." 

Rep. — What  do  you  mean  by  the 
London  companies  and  the  corpora- 
tions ?  " 

J.  R. — "  James  the  First  confiscated 
six  out  of  the  thirty-two  counties  of 
Ireland  and  granted  them  to  favorites 
and  corporations.  The  Protestant 
Bishop  of  Ulster  got  forty-three  thou- 
sand acres.  Trinity  College  got  thirty 
thousand  acres,  and  the  Trades-Unions 
of  London  got  two  hundred  and  ten 
thousand  acres,  on  condition  of  plant- 
ing them  with  English  tenants  and 
driving  out  the  native  inhabitants.  The 
city  of  Derry,  in  the  North,  was  granted 
to  these  companies,  rebuilt  and  called 
Londonderry.  Now  these  companies 
are  all  bad  landlords.  Corporations 
have  no  souls,  as  Blackstone  says,  to 
be  damned,  nor,  he  adds,  the  portion 
of  the  body  that  is  kicked,  but  I  think  . 
they  will  be  kicked  out  of  Ireland.  I 
visited  the  estates  of  the  Trinity  College 
in  the   island   of-  Valencia,  and  at 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  RE  DEATH. 


Cahirciveen,  in  the  County  Kerry, 
and  I  nowhere  saw  more  horrible  spec- 
tacles of  human  wretchedness." 

Rep. — "  You  mean  their  estates  will 
be  confiscated  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  No;  they  ought  to  be.  But 
they  may  be  purchased  by  the  state  and 
then  sold  to  the  tenants." 

Rep. — "  Would  not  this  be  an  un- 
precedented action  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  No;  it  was  done  in  Bel- 
gium and  in  Germany  within  the 
present  century — not  from  motives  of 
])hilanthropy,  but  as  a  measure  of 
safety  to  the  state.  It  is  only  in  Ire- 
land that  feudal  landlordism  exists.  It 
does  not  exist  in  England  or  Scotland. 
In  fact  the  Irish  tenant-at-will  is  a  serf 
of  the  soil,  and  even  Russia  has  abol- 
ished that  svstem.  Irish  landlordism 
is  worse  than  feudalism, — I  might  al- 
most say  it  is  the  opposite, — for  a  feudal 
lord  had  to  feed,  clothe,  lodge,  and 
protect  his  tenant  in  return  for  his  serv- 
ice, while  in  Ireland  the  lord  of  the 
soil  does  nothing  but  starve  him,  clothe 
him  in  rags,  pass  penal  and  coercion 
laws  against  him,  and  defame  him. 
These  absentees  care  no  more  about 
their  tenants  than  if  they  were  beasts — 
less,  in  fact,  because  they  do  feed  and 
keep  their  horses  and  cattle  in  prime 
order." 

Rep. — "  Can  you  give  the  exact 
figures  of  Irish  landlordism  ?" 

J.  R. — "  Yes,  6,000  are  small  pro- 
prietors; 1,198  own  from  2,000  to 
5,000  acres  each — in  all  one-sixth  of 
the  soil  of  Ireland;  185  own  from 
10,000  to  20,000  acres  each;  90  own 
from  20,000  to  50,000  each ;  24  own 
from  50,000  to  100,000,  while  3  own 
over  100,000;  over  36,000  own  only 
one  acre  each.  The  Devon  commi.> 
sion  found — in  1844 — 681,000  farms 
exceeding  one  acre.  In  Connaught, 
*  several  proprietors  had  over  100,000 
acres  each;  while,  out  of  155,842  farms 
in  that  province,  100,254  had  from  one 
to  four  acres  each.  In  187 1,  the  ab- 
sentee proprietors  owned  5,120,169 
acres  of  the  soil  of  Ireland." 

Rep. — "  What  if>  a  tenant-at-will  ?  " 


J.  R  — "  A  man  who  can  be  evicted 
at  the  will  or  caprice  of  the  landlord 
and  htive  all  of  his  improvements  con- 
fiscated. There  arc  682,237  tenants 
in  Ireland.  Now  out  of  these,  626,628, 
or  about  73  per  cent.,  are  tenants-at- 
will." 

Rep. — ^'  Did  not  Gladstone's  act  of 
1870  protect  these  tenants  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  It  was  intended  to  do  so, 
but  it  has  been  a  dead  letter  because 
the  landlords  conspired  to  defeat  it, 
and  every  case  between  a  landlord  and 
tenant  is  tried  before  a  court  of  land- 
lords, and  they  always  construe  every 
doubt  in  favor  of  the  landlord.  The 
judiciary  of  Ireland  is  more  corrapt, 
from  Chief  Justice  May  down,  than 
the  judiciary  of  New- York  was  under 
Boss  Tweed's  rule  in  New- York.  The 
large  farmers  of  the  East  v/ere  cheated 
out  of  their  rights  under  the  Gladstone 
act  by  being  compelled  to  sign  leases 
under  which  they  waived  all  the  rights 
intended  to  be  conferred  on  them  by 
the  law  of  1870,  and  in  the  West  the 
tenants  v/ere  too  poor  to  fight  the 
landlords,  as  law  proceedings  are  not 
only  tedious  but  excessively  expensive." 

Rep. — "  In  the  Queen's  speech  it 
was  said  that  this  law  had  been  of 
great  benefit  to  Ireland." 

J.  R. — "  It  was  never  enforced  until 
last  summer,  when  the  Land  League 
took  up  the  cases  brought  before  them 
and  had  them  tried  before  the  courts 
by  their  own  lawyers." 

Rep. — "  What  is  the  quickcr.t  way 
to  learn  the  truth  about  Ireland  on 
this  side  of  the  Big  Pond  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  Read  what  the  English 
papers  and  books  say  about  Ireland, 
and  then  believe  the  exact  opposite. 
In  nine  cases  out  of  ten,  you  v/ill  hit 
the  mark  by  adopting  this  plan.  Re- 
member that  all  the  cable  dispatcher, 
are  sent  over  here  by  the  bitterest  ene- 
mies of  the  Irish  ])eoplo — the  mo-^t 
servile  parasites  of  the  Irish  landlords 
and  the  British  Government." 

Rep. — "  Why  doesn't  Parnell  go  in 
and  support  Gladstone  and  the  Ens^- 
lish  liberals  ?  " 


92     IRISH  LANDLORDS  AND  IRISH  LAND  LEAGUERS. 


J.  R. — •*  Why,  because  as  far  as  the 
Irish  are  concerned,  there  is  no  essen- 
tial difference  between  EngHsh  tories 
and  EngHsh  hberals,  or  even  English 
republicans.  What  the  Irish  want  is 
the  abolition  of  landlordism,  that  every 
tenant  shall  own  the  soil  he  tills,  and 
that  Ireland  shall  have  home  rule — 
which  does  not  mean  independence, 
but  the  same  right  that  every  State  in 
this  Union  has,  and  every  province  in 
Canada  has,  and  every  colony  in  the 
Australian  group  has — the  right  to 
regulate  its  own  local  affairs.  Glad- 
stone and  Bright  believe  that  the  rela- 
tion of  landlord  and  tenant  in  Ireland 
should  exist,  but  be  modified — and 
they  equally  believe  in  the  right  of  the 
English  to  govern  the  Irish.  The  Irish 
don't  want  landlordism  modified  but 
abolished.  The  Irish  don't  want  the 
English  to  rule  them  but  to  rule  them- 
selves. No  compromise  is  possible  be- 
tween these  positions.  They  are  in- 
herently antagonistic.  Besides,  how  do 
you  expect  "Parnell  and  his  party  to 
support  the  so-called  '  liberal '  govern- 
ment when  that  same  government  has 
done  its  bes,t  to  put  him  and  his  asso- 
ciates into  jail  ?  Would  any  party  in 
America  support  a  government  that 
was  trying  to  put  its  leaders  into  jail?" 

Rep. — "  You  don't  take  any  stock, 
then,  in  the  liberal  professions  of  the 
British  Government  ?  " 

J.  R._"  None.  The  British  Gov- 
ernment is  the  most  cruel,  the  most 
corrupt,  the  most  tyrannical  government 
on  this  globe  to-day,  among  natfons 
that  have  even  the  semblance  of  lib- 
erty. When  has  it  ever  done  justice, 
except  under  fear  of  compulsion  ?  It 
grants  home  rule  to  Australia,  because 
the  Australians  are  so  far  away  that 
they  could  throw  off  British  trammels ; 
it  grants  home  rule  to  Canada,  because 
Canada  is  so  near  the  United  States ; 
and  yet,  when  Ireland  asks  for  home 
rule,  England  yells  out  that  such  a  pol- 
icy would  be  the  '  decomposition  '  of 
the  empire.  It  was  forced  by  the  phi- 
lanthropic classes  of  England  to  abol- 
ish slavery  in  Jamaica,  but  it  refused  to 


abolish  there  the  curse  which  renders 
its  amazing  fertility  of  no  service  to  its 
people — the  same  curse  which  blights 
Ireland — absentee  proprietorship.  No, 
England  will  do  nothing  for  Ireland 
that  is  worth  doing  until  it  is  worried 
into  doing  it.  Paniell  knov/s  his  peo- 
ple and  his  enemy,  and  he  is  taking 
the  only  course  that  is  likely  to  succeed." 

Rep. — "  Do  you  think  there  >vill  be 
an  insurrection  in  Ireland  ?  " 

J.  R. — "No,  I  hope  not;  it  would 
only  end  in  disaster  at  this  time.  The 
young  Irish  arc  well  educated,  and  they 
know  that  it  would  please  England  if 
there  was  an  insurrection,  and  they 
have  no  intention  of  gratifying  her," 

Rep. — "  How  often  have  you  lect- 
ured, since  you  came  from  Ireland  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  About  60  times  in  60  differ- 
ent cities,  east,  west,  and  south." 

Rep. — "  What  is  the  feeling  about 
Ireland  ?  " 

J.  R. — "  The  Irish-Americans  every- 
where are  enthusiastic  over  the  Land 
League  programme,  and  tKe  Americans 
of  the  West  are  solid  in  their  sympathy 
for  the  Irish  people  in  this  struggle ; 
while  in  the  East  the  vast  majority  of 
the  Americans  who  care  anything  at  all 
about  Irish  problems  are  pleased  with 
it.  England  imagines  that  we  have 
forgotten  the  Alabama  and  the  English 
sneers  against  us  during  the  late  war; 
but  she  will  fmd  that  we  have  better 
memories  than  she  gives  us  the  credit 
of  The  Americans  only  v.  ant  to  un- 
derstand this  Irish  land  question  to  be, 
heart  and  soul,  everywhere — as  they 
are  nov/  nearly  everywhere — in  sym- 
pathy with  the  Land  League  move- 
ment." 

[In  a  letter  describing  the  famous 
obstruction  debate  over  the  constabu- 
lary estimates  in  the  English  House  of 
Commons,  Mr.  Redpath  elaborates 
the  same  opinion  expressed  in  this 
interview  respecting  English  liberalism 
that  he  has  everywhere  advocated  in  ^ 
America.    He  wrote:] 

"  I  have  lost  faith  in  English  Radi- 
calism.   The  EngHsh  Radical  thinks 


AN  INTERVIEW  WITH  JAMES  REDPATII 


93 


ill  English  /  he  seems  incapable  of  dis- 
cussing Irish  questions  from  the  point 
of  view  of  equahty  or  even  of  justice; 
he  .is  always  arguing  whether  it  is  ex- 
pedient for  England  to  ^concede'  this 
right  or  that  measure ;  and,  if  he  has 
written  an  article  or  two  in  some 
London  weekly  or  monthly,  the  Eng- 
lish Radical  regards  himself  as  entitled 
to  distinguished  consideration  from  the 
Irish  race.  Jolm  Bright's  speech  was 
a  corruscation  of  this  sentiment.  He 
did  not  deny,  he  said,  his  utterances  in 
behalf  of  Ireland ;  he  took  not  one 
of  them  back,  but  re-afFirmed  each  one 
of  them;  he  had  been,  and  he  was,  a 
friend  of  Ireland,  and  of  Irish  aspira- 
tions. And  having  said  all  this — not 
in  these  words,  but  with  elaborate  skill 
— he  asked,  what?  That  the  Irish 
members  would  kindly  offer  no  obstacle 
against  arming  a  force  of  twelve  thou- 
sand constabulary  with  rifles  and  buck- 
shot to  shoot  down  the  Irish  people ! 
There  is  no  more  need  of  an  armed 
police  in  Ireland  than  in  England — 
because,  as  every  week's  criminal  calen- 
dar shows,  there  are  fewer  crmies  com- 
mitted, in  proportion  to  population,  in 
Ireland  than  in  England. 

"  '  Call  me  brother! '  said  the  French 
Jacobins,  '  or  I  will  kill  thee! ' 


" '  I  have  called  thee  brother,  Paddy,* 
says  Quaker  Bright,  '  and  now  let  me 
shoot  thee.' 

" '  I  will  not  be  the  instrument  of 
injustice,'  quoth  Quaker  Forster,  '  but 
I  refuse  to  substitute  batons  for  buck- 
shot ! ' 

"  Buckshot  Quakers,  or  British  Lib- 
erals, or  English  republicans — they 
are  all  alike ;  there  is  no  sense  in  trying 
to  conciliate  them.  They  must  be 
fought  with  their  own  weapons.  I 
trust  that  as  soon  as  public  opinion  is 
so  ripe  in  Ireland  that  the  present  time- 
serving Home  Rulers  and  Liberals  will 
be  compelled  to  act  under  Mr.  Parnell's 
lead,  that,  then,  obstruction  will  be 
advanced  one  step  further,  and  that 
Irish  members  will  '  interfere '  at  every 
stage  with  every  English  measure,  and 
introduce  every  reform  bill,  one  by  one, 
that  any  class  of  Englishmen  demand — 
making  themselves  the  organs  and 
exponents  of  English  disaffection,  just 
in  order  to  teach  the  English  Govern- 
ment and  the  English  '  liberal '  mem- 
bers to  attend  to  their  own  business, 
and  let  the  Irish  rule  Ireland,  or  else 
showing  them  that  the  Irish  will  rule 
England  through  the  machinery  of 
her  own  self-enacted  parliamentary 
rules." 


94  '  THE  TRUE  REMEDY, 


XT. 

THE  TRUE  REMEDY. 

[This  is  a  speech  by  proxy.  It  was  sent  by  Mr.  Redpath  to  several  Land  League  meetings, 
tnd  read,  in  response  to  large  numbers  of  invitations  to  speak,  after  the  British  press  had 
denounced  his  addresses  at  Leenane  and  Clare  Morris.  "  This  letter,"  says  the  Kerry  Sentinel, 
**was  written  in  reply  to  an  invitation  to  speak  at  a  Land  meeting,  but  our  readers  will  find  in 
(t  an  exposition  so  thorcJugh  and  masterly  that  we  have  little  doubt  it  will  call  forth  admiration 
even  from  many  who  may  differ  in  some  respects  from  the  theories  which  it  propounds.  Only 
a  few*  months  ago,  Mr.  Redpath  came  to  this  country  an  uUer  stranger,  having  no  knowledge 
of  the  country  save,  of  course,  that  which  one  of  his  education  and  attainments  must  have  gath- 
ered of  it  in  the  course  of  his  reading.  How  prejudiced  were  the  sources  from  which  that 
information  was  in  most  instances  derived,  he  himself  has  very  truly  described.  But  this 
extensive  knowledge,  his  keen  insight,  and  his  long  acquaintance  with  other  nations  and  other 
peoples,  enabled  him  to  see  at  a  glance  the  enormities  of  the  system  of  legislation  under  which 
the  Irish  people  battle  for  existence ;  and  he  required  but  to  travel  amongst  them,  to  see  their 
homes,  and  judge  for  himself  of  the  evil  effects  of  the  system,  when  his  most  generous  sympathies 
were  enlisted  on  behalf  of  the  people  of  Erin,  and  we  say — truly  say — of  him  that  he  is  now 
ipsis  Hibernis,  Hibeinior — more  Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves."  Here  is  the  letter  as  read, 
only  two  sentences  having  been  added  to  make  the  meaning  more  clear :] 


My  dear  Sir  : 

IT  would  give  me  great  pleasure 
to  attend  your  meeting,  but  my 
duties  elsewhere  prevent  me  from 
accepting  any  more  invitations  to 
speak  for  the  people — numerous  and 
very  cordial  as  these  invitations  are. 
The  same  duties  prevent  me  from 
complying  with  the  recommendations 
of  the  London  and  Dublin  landlord 
press  to  return  to  America,  nor  to  stand 
upon  the  order  of  my  going,  but  to  go 
at  once — many  and  really  sincere  as 
these  suggestions  are.  By  priests,  and 
leagues,  and  audiences  in  the  West  of 
Ireland  I  have  been  urged  to  speak, 
but  in  London,  in  Ulster,  and  in  Dub- 
lin I  find  myself  charged,  both  on 
public  platforms  and  in  the  press,  with 
"  abusing  the  hospitality  of  the  coun- 
try "  by  having  yielded  to  these  re- 
quests. If  I  spoke  again  I  should 
answer  these  toadies  and  parasites  of 
the  landlords ;  and  perhaps  you  will 
read  to  your  friends  a  summary  of  my 
reply  to  them  ? 

What  right  has  an  American  citizen 
to  talk  in  Ireland  on  Irish  politics  ?  Be- 
.  cause  Americans  believe  that  taxation 
without  representation  is  tyranny  ]  and 
because  America  is  taxed  every  year 
to  pay  the  rack-rents  of  the  West  of 
Ireland  landlords;  and  because  Amer- 


ica, whenever  there  is  a  famine,  is  ex- 
pected to  pay  the  expense  of  saving 
tens  of  thousands  of  Irish  tenants  from 
starvation,  although  Mr.  Gladstone  has 
admitted  that  the  property  of  the  land- 
lords is  legally  liable  for  this  charge. 
As  nearly  as  I  can  ascertain,  more 
than  half  of  the  rents  of  the  small 
holdings  along  the  Atlantic  coast  of 
Ireland  are  paid  by  the  exiled  sons 
and  daughters  of  their  tillers,  now  in 
America.  That  is  one  reason  why  the 
landlords  are  so  anxious  to  send  out 
the  young  people — because  their  earn- 
ings enable  the  old  folks  at  home  to 
pay  rents  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
value  of  the  produce  that  can  be  raised 
on  their  famis.  When  the  landed 
Shylocks  of  Ireland  cease  to  take  half 
of  their  pound  of  flesh  from  America, 
then  (and  not  till  then)  Americans  Vvill 
have  no  right  to  discuss  the  character 
of  their  exactions. 

But  consider  the  supreme  arrogance 
of  these  cockneys  and  landlord  para- 
sites! The  free  people  of  Ireland  are 
not  to  be  permitted  to  invite  any  gen- 
tleman, traveling  in  their  country,  to 
address  them,  unless  what  he  says  shall 
be  acceptable  to  the  monarchical  flun- 
keys of  London  and  the  religious 
bigots  of  Belfast!  As  if  a7iy  honest 
American  couid  speak  pleasant  words 


I 


A  SPEECH  BY  PROXY 


BY  JAMES  REDPATH. 


95 


about  the  petty  tyrants  called  landlords 
who  rule  Ireland  !  As  if  every  Ameri- 
can— Protestant,  Catholic,  Rationalist, 
Materialist,  Spiritualist  — without  regard 
to  reU^ious  belief  or  non-belief  in  re- 
ligion — did  not  despise  every  form  and 
phase  of  religious  intolerance !  Oh, 
yes !  England  is  the  land  of  the  free 
and  the  home  of  the  brave";  but  if 
any  stranger  tells  the  truth  in  Ireland 
— really,  you  know,  "  it's  outrageous, 
you  knov,',"  "  pure  Socialism,  you  know," 
— and  Lord  Montmorris  died  of  it, — 
although,  to  be  sure,  he  lay  stark  and 
cold  long  before  the  "  seditious  lan- 
guage "  was  uttered !  "  Conscience 
makes  cowards  of  us  all,"  and  it  is  be- 
cause the  landlords  know  their  own 
crimes  that  one  feeble  voice  crying  in 
the  wilderness  thus  alarms  them. 

If  I  had  the  gift  of  eloquence,  and 
could  postpone  other  duties  in  Amer- 
ica, I  should  never  leave  Ireland  until 
I  had  addressed  the  people  wherever 
they  invited  me — to  pay  back  to  Eng- 
land the  great  gift  she  made  us,  with 
the  applause  of  her  aristocracy,  in 
sending  George  Thompson,  one  of  her 
most  brilliant  orators,  to  denounce  and 
help  to  destroy  American  slavery,  be- 
fore that  twin  monster  of  Irish  land- 
lordism died  the  death  it  merited.  Our 
tyrants  denounced  him,  as  your  tyrants 
denounced  me;  but  John  Bright  ap- 
2)lauded  him  across  the  Atlantic,  and 
preached  the  same  doctrine  to  us  that 
Wendell  Phillips  preaches  to  you — 
"  Destroy  the  evil.  No  compromise 
with  it."  The  English  aristocracy  sent 
money  to  help  on  our  anti-slavery 
movement,  and  the  American  democ- 
racy will  pay  it  back  in  contributions  to 
help  tlie  anti-landlordism  movement. 

There  is  a  perfect  parallel  between 
the  development  of  the  anti-slavery 
movement  in  America  and  the  growth 
— albeit  the  more  rapid  growth — of  the 
anti-landlordism  movement  in  Ireland. 
If  the  parallel  shall  continue,  judging 
from  the  past,  you  are  threatened  by 
,  three  dangers — violence,  disunion,  and 
compromise. 

The  young  men  must  be  taught  that 


violence  is  not  criminal  only,  but  stu- 
pid ;  that  this  great  reform  must  be  ac- 
complished by  moral,  social,  and  polit- 
ical agencies ;  and  next,  that  patriotic  , 
projects  never  hinder,  but  always  help 
each  other;  and  that,  although  their 
methods  may,  and  even  must  differ, 
they  never  can  conflict. 

It  seems  to  me,  as  a  friendly  and 
impartial  looker-on,  that  the  Land 
League  movement  is  Ireland's  last 
hope  of  savin her  race  and  her  nation- 
ality  from  an  absorption  which,  how- 
ever it  might  benefit  other  races  and 
nations,  would  enable  and  force  the 
coming  historian  to  tell  her  story  in  one 
sad  word— failed.  For,  until  O'Con- 
nell  rose,  and  after  he  fell,  every  patri^ 
otic  movement  failed.  Irish  hero- 
worship  is  the  worship  of  unsuccess. 
Think  of  it:  in  1,400  years,  two  men 
only  have  succeeded  in  their  efforts 
until  death  overtook  them — St.  Patrick 
and  Daniel  O'Connell.  I  do  not 
mention  the  military  hero  who  rose  on 
the  ruin  of  the  constitution  of  his 
country — for  successes  such  as  his  have 
always  proven  to  be  more  disastrous 
than  defeats. 

There  is  a  new  element  in  the  Irish 
problem  that  makes  further  quarreling 
fatal.  I  mean  steam.  While  Nation- 
alists, Home  Rulers,  and  Land  Leag- 
uers quarrel,  young  Ireland  is  buying 
tickets  for  America  and  Australia.  It 
is  union  or  death  for  old  Ireland  now. 

But  greater  than  the  dangers  from 
violence  and  dissensions  is  the  danger 
of  compromise.  Already  I  see  symp- 
toms of  this  disease  of  politics.  Already  ^ 
I  see  efforts  made  to  discriminate  be- 
tween good  landlords  and  bad  land- 
lords, and  I  hear  pleas  made  for 
"  perpetual  leases,"  or  leases  with 
security  of  tenure." 

Let  every  leader  who  talks  in  this 
fashion  suddenly  find  himself  in  the 
center  of  a  silent  solitude.  Never  de- 
nounce any  man  who  has  ever  done  : 
even  one  good  act  for  Ireland — it 
would  be  ungracious  and  ungrateful  to 
do  so,  and  besides  time  is  too  precious 
to  be  wasted  in  dissensions;  but  let 


96 


THE  TRUE  REMEDY. 


every  public  man  know  that  the  one 
condition  he  must  submit  to,  in  leadmg 
even  a  single  company  of  Irish  tenants, 
is  to  keep  afloat  the  oriflamb  of 
"land  for  the  people,"  of  "  free  farms 
for  free  men,"  and  not  the  pawn- 
broker's flag  of  long  leases  for  peasant 
serfs,  with  security  of  tenure  to  land- 
lords. This  is  not  a  petty  scramble 
for  cheap  rents,  but  a  grand  crusade  for 
free  homes. 

Rent  is  the  whip  with  which  usurers 
and  usurpers  have  scourged  the  backs 
of  the  Irish  people  for  centuries,  and 
leases  is  only  another  name  for  lashes. 
No  compromise This  crusade  is  not 
a  Donnybrook  Fair  fight,  to  break  the 
heads  of  the  landlords,  more  or  fewer, 
but  a  democratic  uprising  for  the  im- 
mediate and  total  abolition  of  land- 
lordism in  Ireland.  It  is  not  a  mad 
riot  against  men,  but  a  holy  war  against 
a  system.  The  men  are  bad  enough, 
but  the  system  is  worse,  and  the  inher- 
ent and  ineradicable  fault  of  the  system 
is  that  if  the  landlord  is  bad  he  can  call 
on  the  whole  power  of  the  British 
empire  to  enforce  his  tyranny;  where- 
as, if  he  is  good,  his  kindness  depends 
on  personal  caprice ;  it  is  not  secured 
by  law  ;  and  while  his  authority  is 
hereditary,  his  benevolence  may  die 
with  him. 

Quacks  had  better  leave  this  ques- 
tion to  be  dealt  with  by  competent 
men.  As  high  as  the  heavens  are  I 
above  the  earth,  it  soars  above  the 
range  of  demagogues  and  politicians. 
Cromwell  was  merciless,  Cromwell 
was  bloody,  but  Cromwell  was  a  great 
statesman  as  well  as  a  great  soldier, 
and  he  accomplished,  by  demoniac 
methods,  his  demoniac  purpose.  He 
meant  to  cripple  the  Irish,  and  he  did 
cripple  them  for  centuries. 

As  I  said  about  social  excommuni- 
cation, I  again  say  about  the  Crom- 
wellian  settlement :  there  is  no  reason 
why  despotism  should  monopolize  all 
the  most  effective  methods  of  achieve- 
ment. Cromwell  drove  the  Irish  into 
Connaught — now  the  Irish  must  return 
to  the  lands  from  which  he  expelled 


them.  Landlords  and  bullocks  must 
go— to  Connaught  or  England,  as  they 
please:  but  the  rich  midland  and 
eastern  counties  of  Ireland  must  cease 
to  be  grazing  farms,  and  become  the 
homes  of  the  people  of  Ireland.  The 
landlords  have  driven  the  people  into 
the  edges  of  wet  bogs  and  up  the 
slopes  of  stony  mountains,  and  they 
have  given  the  best  lands  to  beasts. 
Now^  the  brutes  must  leave  and  make 
way  for  the  people.  To  leave  the 
people  in  the  lands  they  now  live  on 
would  be  to  perpetuate,  not  the  curse 
of  Cromwell  only,  but  the  crimes  of 
the  landlords  for  generations  since  he 
died. 

I  do  not  believe  that  any  large  pro- 
portion of  the  Irish  landlords  have 
equitable  titles.  I  advanced  this  theory 
at  Leenane — ^just  to  admonish  my  Lord 
Shylock  that  the  pound  of  flesh  theory 
is  a  dangerous  one  in  law  as  well  as  in 
morals.  I  talked  to  a  road-side  full  of 
peasants,  but  Shylock's  howls  were 
heard  in  every  city  of  England  and 
Scotland,  and  they  even  crossed  the 
Channel  to  France  and  were  rever- 
berated in  America.  Now  that  this 
argument  has  served  its  purpose,  I  feel 
it  due  to  my  friends  among  the  ten- 
antry to  say  that  England,  without  a 
revolution,  would  never  accept  it  as  a 
guide  to  action.  If  the  people  of  Ire- 
land are  to  be  peacefully  restored  to 
I  their  ancestral  lands,  the  revolution 
must  be  accomplished  by  purchase. 

But  I  do  most  earnestly  protest 
against  some  of  the  propositions  that 
have  been  advanced  regarding  pur- 
chase. Without  referring  to  their  au- 
thors— which  might  cause  needless 
controversy — I  hold  that  the  true 
theory  of  purchase  must  first  take  cog- 
nizance only  of  the  landlords'  original 
possession,  and  carefully  credit  to  the 
tenants*  account  all  improvements 
made  by  him  or  by  his  predecessors. 
Griffith's  valuation  is  often  referred  to 
by  well-meaning  men  as  a  fair  estimate, 
(on  the  average)  of  the  letting  price  of 
farms.  While  it  is  quite  unequal  in 
certain  sections — because  Grifiith  had 


A  SPEECH  BY  PROXY 


BY  JAMES  REDPATH,  97 


to  trust  largely  to  subordinates — on 
the  whole  it  is  approximately  correct, 
if  we  utterly  ignore  the  right  of  the 
workingman  to  any  property  in  the  im- 
prove/nents  and  reclamations  made  at  his 
own  sole  expc?ise,  and  if  we  admit  that 
the  landlord  is  justly  entitled  to  confis- 
cate the  value  of  these  improvements 
and  reclamations.  Not  otherwise — by 
the  God  of  Justice,  not  otherwise  !  For 
Griffith's  valuation  was  made  (on  the 
average)  at  thirty  per  cent,  below  "  the 
full "  or  highest  (that  is  the  rack-rent) 
letting  value  of  the  farms ;  but  this 
valuation  was  made  on  the  holdings  as 
they  were  when  the  valuator  saw  them, 
7iot  as  they  were  when  the  landlord  let 
them.  Why,  if  the  tenant  is  to  buy  his 
farms,  should  he  pay  the  landlord  for 
his  owJi  improvements  ? 

No  race  and  no  class  of  men  were 
ever  yet  found  just  enough  or  good 
enough  to  have  unchecked  control 
over  any  other  race  or  any  other  class. 
There  is  safety  only  in  the  government 
of  all  by  all — security  only  when  every 
man  is  the  guardian  of  his  own  prop- 
erty and  rights.  The  rights  of  peasants 
and  the  rights  of  landlords — that  is  to 
say,  the  prerogatives  or  demands  of 
classes — must  clear  the  way  for  the 
reign  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  the 
people. 

Quacks  talk  of  the  "  impossibility  " 
and  "  impracticability of  planting  the 
people  on  free  farms,  or  of  inducing 
the  British  Government — a  body  of 
landlords — to  "  consent  to  a  confisca- 
tion of  the  estates  of  the  landlords." 
"  The  Government  of  England  will 
never  do  it,"  they  say,  "  without  a 
revolution,  and  a  revolution  means 
bloodshed."  Well,  the  British  Gov- 
ernment can  do  it,  and  it  has  done 
equally  "  impossible "  tasks  without 
bloodshed.  When  the  British  Gov- 
ernment says  nevcr^  history  shows 
that  (like  Sir  Joseph  Porier  of  the 
Pinafore')  it  means  "  hardly  ever."  It 
once  said  that  it  would  never  grant 
Catholic  Emancipation — but  it  did 
grant  it.  It  said — this  body  of  land- 
lords— that  it  would  never  repeal  the 

7 


Com  Laws — but  it  did  repeal  them. 
And,  besides,  the  official  Englishman 
cares  quite  as  litde  for  the  interests  of 
the  Irish  landlord  as  he  cares  for  the 
demands  of  the  Irish  tenant.  He  did 
not  hesitate  to  disestablish  the  Irish 
Church,  although  he  was  told  that  it 
would  lead  to  the  disestablishment  of  the 
English  Church ;  and  he  will  not  hesi- 
tate  to  disestablish  Irish  landlordism, 
if  he  sees  that  it  is  for  his  interest  to  do 
so,  even  if  it  should  be  argued  that  it 
would  end  in  the  Nationalization  of 
the  Land  of  England. 

To  the  average  official  Englishman, 
Irish  tenants  and  Irish  landlords  are 
only  rival  nuisances  that  he  would  like 
to  abate  in  any  way  that  would  restore 
quiet.  "A  plague  on  both  your 
houses  "  is  his  normal  opinion  of  both 
parties  to  the  Irish  Land  War.  Irish 
landlords  are  resting  on  a  broken  reed 
when  they  fancy  that  England  will 
support  them  in  their  hour  of  need,  if 
the  people  of  Ireland  refuse  to  yield  to 
state  force  or  to  be  seduced  by  state 
craft,  f^ngland  begins  to  see  that  it 
does  not  pay  to  tax  herself  to  support  a 
class  of  runaway  landlords,  to  whom 
she  gave  the  lands  originally  on  con- 
dition that  they  should  support  her. 
AVhen  the  English  find  that  anything 
does  not  pay,  its  greatest  moral  prop 
is  gone.  And,  of  all  unprofitable 
institutions  to  England,  Irish  land- 
lordism is  the  chief. 

The  only  "  impracticable  "  and  "im- 
possible "  idea  in  planting  and  trans- 
planting the  Irish  people  lies  in  the 
insane  idea  that  this  sick  Ireland 
can  be  cured  without  abolishing  her 
disease.  That  is  impracticable.  Land- 
lordism must  go,  or  Ireland  must  go. 
Ireland  is  going  as  fast  as  steam  can 
carry  her,  and  I  hope  there  will  be  a 
universal  exodus  if  any  attempt  is  made 
to  save  the  despicable  despots  of  her 
soil.  Out  with  them  I  Better  that  the 
whole  Irish  iac2  should  be  merged  in 
our  comjjosite  nationality  in  America^ 
than  that  the  Irish  race  /"//  Ireland 
should  continue  to  remain  a  race  of 
perpetual  tax-payers  to  men  who  got 


98 


THE  TRUE  REMEDY. 


their  lands  by  confiscation  and  by  per- 
jury, or  because  the  forefathers  of  their 
present  tenants  refused  to  serve  man 
rather  than  God,  and  become  false  to 
the  faith  in  which  they  had  been  reared, 
and  by  which  alone  they  hoped  for  the 
life  everlasting. 

Let  it  be  repeated  and  repeated,  and 
remembered  and  remembered,  that  if 
the  tenant  purchased  his  holding  at 
Griffith's  valuation,  he  would  be  pay- 
ing sometimes  double,  and  quite  as 
often  quadruple,  the  price  to  which  the 
landlord  would  have  been  equitably 
entitled,  even  if  he  had  originally  come 
honestly  into  the  possession  o  f  his  farm. 

Now,  1  often  argued  last  winter,  both 
in  public  and  in  private,  that  when  the 
time  came  for  universal  purchase,  in 
order  to  establish  people's  proprietor- 
ship, every  landlord  should  be  com- 
pelled to  deduct  from  the  amount  to  be 
otherwise  paid  to  him,  every  shilling 
that  he  had  received  for  rent  over  Grif- 
fith's valuation.  The  landlords  pay 
their  share  of  taxes  on  the  basis  of 
Griffith's  valuation,  and  therefore  they 
should  be  compelled  to  disgorge  every 
shilling  that  they  exacted  from  their 
tenants  since  that  valuation  was  made. 
I  am  glad  to  see  that  a  distinguished 
Catholic  bisho])  has  recendy  advocated 
the  same  doctrine.  Its  extreme  mod- 
eration is  seen  from  the  fact  that  his 
lordship  is  content  to  ignore  the  ten- 


ants' rights  in  his  improvements,  at  the 
time  when  Griffith's  valuation  was 
made. 

The  next  lion  in  the  way  of  peasant 
proprietorship  is  the  vast  sum  that 
would  be  needed  "  to  buy  out  the  land- 
lords and  pay  them  at  once."  Why 
should  they  be  "  paid  at  once  "  ?  Are 
they  "  paid  at  once  "  now  ?  As  soon 
as  the  Land  League  is  strong  enough, 
not  all  the  power  of  England  will  make 
it  possible  for  the  landlords  to  be  paid 
at  all !  A  strike  among  the  tenants  in 
Ireland  would  be  quite  as  effective  as 
among  the  English  workingmen ;  and 
all  the  power  of  the  English  Govern- 
ment does  not  djre  to  lay  one  finger 
on  the  trades-unions.  The  Queen 
might  die  at  St.  Helena  if  such  an  at- 
tempt to  coerce  the  British  worker 
should  be  seriously  made. 

If,  after  a  careful  examination,  it 
shall  be  determined  to  compel  the  land- 
lords to  sell  (I  use  the  word  compel  for 
the  sake  of  clearness,  nnd  because  I 
mean  it)  at,  say  ten  or  fifteen  years  of 
Griffith's  valuation,  then — after  the  de- 
ductions of  rack-renting  shall  have 
been  made — the  Government  should 
simply  guarantee  the  payment  of  ten 
or  fifteen  annual  installments,  holding 
the  lands  in  its  own  name  and  absolute 
sovereignty  until  the  full  amount  was 
paid.  The  installments  would  probably 
be  about  one-third  of  the  present  rents. 


THE 


END. 


IRELANP  AS  SHE  IS, 


IKJiLAND  AS  SHE  OUQHT  TO  BE. 


Ireland :  Past  and  Present. 


THIS  latest,   coinplctest,  and   most   exhaustive  compendium  of 
Irish  liit^tory  is  tlie  last  contribution  towards  the  literature  of 
his  race  and  country  by  the  late  lamented  Major  David  Power 
Conynghani,  LL.D. 

Of  a  patriotic  stock  and  allied  by  blood  to  some  of  Ireland's 
noblest  sons,  including  among  them  the  gentle  Poet  of  the  Anner, 
Charles  J.  Kickham,  the  gifted  author  of  "Ireland:  Past  and 
Present"  spent  the  best  and  most  mature  years  of  his  life  in  the 
grand  task  of  disseminating  valuable  reading  matter  for  those  of  his 
kith  and  kin  who  live  in  this  favored  land — the  Greater  Ireland 
beyond  the  Seas. 

Few  there  are  in  this  busy  age  who  have  time  to  study  out  a 
detailed  history  of  any  country;  but  the  scholar,  the  student,  or  the 
avera2:e  reader  will  in  this  work  find  all  that  is  necessarv  to  enable 
the  mind  to  draw  a  vivid  and  correct  picture  of  Ireland's  fate  and 
fortunes  from  the  earliest  period  to  the  present  diiy. 

An  accui-ate  statement  of  the  Land  Question,  with  full  details  of 
the  development  of  the  mighty  movement  led  on  by  Parnell,  the 
Avondale  chief  rain,  and  Davitt,  the  Landless  Peasant  of  Mayo,  is 
given  in  this  elaborate  book,  which,  as  an  accurate  authority  on  all 
subjects  connected  with  the  matter  of  which  it  treats,  cannot  be 
surpassedj.and  has  not  been  equalled  by  any  author  up  to  the  present 
time. 

In  addition  to  the  si^lendid  pages  of  Major  Conyngham  there  is 
contained  in  this  volume  a  rare  delineation  of  the  "  Penal  Laws," 
from  the  pen  of  one  of  Parnell's  most  gifted,  patriotic,  and  lib/'ral 
ancestors;  and  the  noble  work  concludes  with  ''Talks  about  Ire- 
land," by  James  Rcdpath,  whose  name  and  fame  are  written  on  Irish 
hearts,  whether  they  beat  by  the  Atlantic  swept  clitTs  of  Connemara, 
or  by  the  golden  slopes  towards  the  setting  sun  that  are  laved  by  the 
placid  waters  of  the  far-spreading  Pacific. 

Profusely  illustrated  with  portraits  of  Ireland's  bravest,  pur- 
est, and  most  devoted  children,  and  with  life-like  sketches,  taken 
by  the  best  artists,  of  those  charming  historical  spots  which  mark 
Ireland  no  less  the  Land  of  Beauty  than  the  Shrine  of  Romance ; 
"Ireland:  Past  and  Present"  offers  a  fine  addition  to  the 
library,  and  is  in  all  respects  calculated  to  interest  and  instruct. 

Old  and  young  should  have  it,  and  in  this  Shelrer-land  of  their 
•  race  every  Irish  man  and  woman  should  read  it.  In  its  pages  the 
•  elders  of  the  family  will  live  again  by  the  Shannon,  the  Blnckwater, 
the  Li tfey,  or  the  Lee,  and  from  it  the  young  will  learn  to  admire, 
appreciate,  and  imitate  the  grand  examples  of  fidelity  to  God  and 
Country  which  are  the  proudest  possessions  of  the  Irish  people. 

708  PAGES,   PJIICE$3,00}  GILT  EDGES,  $3.50. 

JAMES  SHEENY,  Publisher,  33  Murray  St.,  New  York. 


IRELAND:  PAST  AND  PRESENT. 


The  subjoined  headings  will  enable  the  intelligent  inquirer  to 
form  a  fair  idea  of  the  scope  of  this  great  work  : 

Pagan  Ireland. — Founded  by  Partholan,  B.C.  10G9^  or  about  312 
years  after  the  Deluge.  • 

•Christian  Ireland. — Arising  from  the  slough  of  Paganism  to 
glorify  St.  Patrick's  mission,  which  commenced  a.d.  432. 

Ireland,  the  Island  of  Saints. — Rivalling  Paradise  with  the  vir- 
tues of  such  holy  and  learned  men  and  women  as  the  Prophet,  Saint 
Columbkille  and  the  noble  Virgin,  Saint  Brigid.  The  years  suc- 
ceeding A.D.  544  for  many  centuries  placed  Ireland  at  the  head  of 
Christian  civilization  after  Rome  itself. 

The  Danish  Invasion,  a.d.  705,  which  continued  with  varying 
fortunes  until  the  reign  of  Turlough  I.,  in  a.d.  10T2,  when  the 
Danes  living^  in  Ireland  finally  acknowledged  alle<^iance  to  the  Mon- 
arch  of  Ireland.  In  this  chapter  are  recalled  the  glories  of  Brian  the 
Brave,  whose  splendid  victory  at  Glontarf  in  a.d.  1014  shattered  the 
power  of  the  Vikings,  and  justly  entitles  that  great  king  to  be  called 
the  Sobieski  of  his  age. 

The  Anglo-Norman  Invasion,  a.d.  1169,  and 

The  Reformation,  a.d.  1535,  occupy  sad  chapters  of  Irish  history. 

The  Volunteers,  a.d.  1782. 

The  Union,  a.d.  1801. 

Catholic  Emancipation,  a.d.  1829. 

The  Repeal  Agitation,  a.d.  1840  to  1847. 

The  Fenian  Movement,  a.d.  1860  to  1867. 

The  Wretched  Condition  of  the  Country — Coercion  and  oppression. 

The  Land  War,  and  The  Land  League  Movement;. 

A  Retrospect— 1782  and  1882. 

The  Dublin  Exhibition,  August  15th,  1882. 

The  Irish  Hierarchy — Their  Views  on  the  Land  League. 

Chronological  Table  of  Important  Events,  b.c.  2035  to  a.d. 
1883.    This  interesting  chapter  fills  91  pages.    Then  is  given 

Parnell's  History  of  the  Penal  Laws,  filling  168  pages,  and 

Talks  about  Ireland,  by  James  Redpath,  filling  96  pages. 

This  great  work  is  comprised  in  one  large  volume  of  768  pages, 
octavo,  green  or  bhie  silk  grain  cloth,  elegant  gold  designs,  profusely 
illustrated,  and  contains 

A  Colored  Map  of  Ireland, 

SHOWING  THE  LOCALITIES  A\n  TITLES  OF  THE  rRINCIFAL  OLD 

IRISH  FAMILIES. 

PRICE  $3.00;  GILT  EDGES,  $3.50. 

AOENTTS  WANTED  EVERY   WHERE,  • 
With  whom  extra  liberal  terms  will  be  made,  and  to  whom  exclusive 
territory  will  be  given. 

JAMES  SHEEHY,  Publisher, 

33  Murray  Street,  New  York. 

BOSTON,  68  Devonshire  St.;   PHIIADELPHIA.  30  N.  5th^_sk-:  


LIVES  OP 


By  JOHN  O'KANE  MTTKRAT,  B.  S.,  M.  A.,  M.  D., 

Author  of  "The  Popular  History  of  the  Catholic  Church  in  the  United  States," 
"Prose  and  Poetry  of  Ireland,"  "Little  Lives  of  the  Great  Saints,"  "Catholic 
pioneers  of  America,"  and  "Lessons  in  English  Literature."  cfcc. 


This  splendid  new  work  is  the  first  attempt  ever  made  to  bring  within 
the  compass  of  one  volume  a  truthful  and  interesting  account  of  those 
great  representative  Catholics,  who  have  left  bright  immortal  names 
and  enduring  footprints  in  the  New  World. 

The  Lives  of  24:  of  the  great  Catholic  Heroes  and  Heroines  of  Am,er- 
ica.    Let  us  glance  at  this  glittering  g.ilaxy  of  famou-^  n  imes : 

Christophek  Columbus, — who  doubled  the  size  of  the  world's  map, 
and  introduced  Earope  to  America.  ,He  is  tha  greatest  Catholic  hero 
of  modern  times,  and  his  life  reads  like  a  romance. 

Alonzo  de  Ojeda, — the  discoverer  of  the  Gulf  of  Venezuela,  and 
warrior  protege  of  the  Blessed  Virgin. 

Vasco  Nunez  de  B.vlboa, — the  discoverer  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  a 
man  whose  heroic  career  is  full  of  adventure. 

Herxantdo  Cortes, — the  fearless  conq'ieror  of  Mexico,  and  di>4C0verer 
of  California,  and  the  greatest  military  genius  America  has  yet  seen. 

St.  Rose  of  Lima, — the^r.s-^  C  inoaizedSaint  of  the  New  World. 

Saaiuel  de  Cha:mplain, — the  founder  of  Qaebec;  first  governor  of 
Canada,  and  discoverer  of  Lakes  Chainplain  and  Ontario; — -a  Catholic 
hero  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 

Father  Isaac  Jogues,  S.  J., — the  first  apostle  of  the  Iroquois  Indians. 
He  was  martyred  near  Schenectady,  N.  Y.,  in  1646. 

Fx^ther  John  de  Brebeuf,  S.  J. — the  Apostle  of  the  Huron  Indians, 
and  *'  the  <xreatest  of  the  American  Jesuits."  He  was  martyred  in 
Canada,  in  lG4i). 

Father  Andrew  White,  S.  J., — the  famous  apostle  of  Maryland. 

Venerable  Mary  of  the  Incarnation, — C  inadas'  first  canonized  Saint. 
Venerable  Margaret  Bourgeois,  — the  heroic  foundress  of  the  Sisters  of 
the  Congregation  de  Notre  Dame. 

Miss  Jane  Mance, — the  foundress  of  the  first  hospital  in  Canada. 

Father  James  Marquette,  S.  J., — the  saintly  and  famous  discoverer 
of  the  Mississippi  lliver. 

Robert  Cavalier  de  la  Salle, — the  illustrious  discoverer  of  the  Ohio 
River,  and  explorer  of  the  Mississippi  Valley. 

Louis  Joseph  de  Montcalm, — the  last  heroic  Commander  of  the 
French  in  Canada. 

Commodore  John  Barry, — the  glorious  founder  of  the  American  Navy. 

Archbishop  John  Carjioll, — the  Patriarch  of  the  Catholic  Church  in 
the  United  States. 

Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton, — the  great  Catholic  signer  of  the 
Declaration  of  Independence. 

Bishop  Simon  Gabriel  Brute, — the  learned  and  holy  teacher  of  Arch- 
bishop Hughes,  and  the  "Guardian  Angel"  of  Mount  St.  Mary's 
College,    Emmittsburg,  Md. 


Father  Demetrius  AuGUSTI^*E  Gallitzin, — the  noble  Russian  prince, 
and  heroic  apostle  of  western  Pennsylvania. 

Bisuop  Joii.v  England, — llie  illustrious  founder  of  ILeCa'holic  church 
in  the  Caroliiias  and  Georgia. 

Archbishop  John  Hughes  — whose  heroic  ajid  beautiful  hfe  should  be 
familiar  to  every  Catholic  in  this  llepublic. 

Father  Peter  John  de  Smet,  S.  J., — the  ajjostle  of  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains, and  the  great  Indian  Missionary  of  our  own  day. 

What  a  precious  collection  of  lives!  This  sparkling-  volume  is 
really  a  Catholic  history  of  America.  It  has  not  one  dull  page.  It  has 
called  forth  the  highest  commendations. 


Rev.  B.  a.  Maguire,  S.  J.,  the  famous  missionary  says:  "I  feel  sure 
that  it  will -do  much  good  to  the  cause  of  the  Church.  I  will  be  happy 
to  recommend  it  in  my  missions." 

The  New  York  Sun  sa^'s:  Dr.  Murray's  style  is  animated  and 
vigorous^  and  his  volume  cannot  fail  to  lind  exte  nsive  favor  with  the 
public." 

Tbe  Buffalo  Catholic  Union  ?>3.y^:  "Did  our  readers  ever  know, 
W3  w.)n<l3r,  thxt  thero  was  aa  Ii'ishmm  araon-j^  tha  crew  of  Columbus 
on  the  Santi  Mxria?  We  confess  it  was  news  to  us,  wdien  we  recently 
saw  the  statement  in  that  admirable  work—"  THE  CATHOLIC 
HEROES  AND  HEROINES  OF  AMERICA.  "See  pages  51  and  83. 

The  Brooklyn  Times  says:  "Dr.  Murray  is  already  Avell  known  to 
fame,  as  0:13  of  the  most  voluminous,  rehable,  and  popular  of  living* 
authors,  iu  a  department  of  literature  that  has  exerted  a  fascinating 
inflaance  over  in  my  of  the  brightest  minds  in  the  Republic  of  letters. 
Ill  this  volume  he  ha  i  taken  up  tin  lives  of  twenty-four  of  the  most 
distinguishe.l  adaerents  of  the  C  itliolic  faith,  who,  from  Columbus 
d  )Wii\vard,  have  imprinted  their  names  in  indelible  characters  on  the 
scroll  of  American  history.  It  would  be  difficult  to  find  in  the  rays  of 
lirerature  a  more  valuable  gift  book  for  CathoHc  youth,  wliilethe  largo 
clear  type  in  whicli  the  volume  is  printed,  its  supsrb  illustra'ions,  and 
its  tasteful  exterior,  combine  to  make  it  a  treasured  accession  to  any 
library. 

Illustrated  with  32  full-page  engravings,  and  printed  from  l.ykge, 
clear  type  on  fine  paper,  8s4  pages,  8v0,  cloth,  elegant. 

Price  $3.00,  G-ilt  Edges,  $  3.5  0, 

THE  JOINT  VENTURE  :  A  TALE  IN  TWO  l.ANT)S. 

By  E.  a.  Fitzsevion. 

Dedicated  to  tlae  Sons  and  Daughters  of  Ireland,  and  their  American  CouHms, 

327  pp.  12mo.  Clofh,  Elegant,  Prico  $1.00. 
It  is  written  in  a  true  CathoUc  Spirit,  and  is  a  very  beautifid  story. 

Agent 3  wanted  every  where, 

With  whom  extra  liberal  terms  will  be  made,  and  to  wliom  exclusive  ^ 
territory  wdl  be  given. 


PMladelphia,  SON.  5th  St.  T  A  M  "FT  Q 
Baltiiiioiv.  T4  V.Fayette  St.  J  ^1*11^0 
>\  a&hiogton,  615  7th  Street. 


SHEEHY.  Publisher. 

33  Murray  St-  N-  Y- 


\ 


1 


» 


BOSTON  COLLEGE 


3  9031  0121 


3190  0 


IX)ES  NOT  CIRCULATE 


-V 


